Managing frame diversity in environmental participatory processes – Example from the Fogera woreda in Ethiopia

Abstract

Many participatory processes fail to generate social change and collaborative outcomes. This failure can partly be explained by how divergent stakeholders' frames are handled. This paper builds on the framing and participation literature to explain how facilitators can manage frame diversity and foster collaborative outcomes. It suggests two pragmatic steps: identifying frames and managing frames. The two steps are applied to a participatory process for natural resource management in Fogera, Ethiopia. Effectiveness of facilitators' strategies to manage frame diversity in the Fogera case is discussed. Two main elements challenging effectiveness are identified: counter-strategies used by facilitators and most-powerful stakeholders, and the constraining factors knowledge, champions and frame sponsorship. We argue that these elements need to be taken into account by participatory process facilitators when managing frame diversity.

Deliberating Our Frames: How Members of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives Use Shared Frames to Tackle Within-Frame Conflicts Over Sustainability Issues

“…In our study, participants deliberated their frames in a different way at a micro-level compared to the reviewed settings of social movements (Snow et al, 1986, Benford & Snow, 2000, policy disputes (Schoen & Rein, 1994), organisational settings (Gray et al, 2015;Kaplan, 2008), and MSIs (Brugnach et al, 2011;DeWulf et al, 2004;DeWulf & Bowen, 2012;Hassenforder et al, 2016). In line with the focus on between-frame conflicts, the frame deliberation mechanisms described in this literature concern predominantly the deliberation of divergent frames.…”

“…Instead, frames are sometimes described in terms of quite specific views of certain situations, such as particular management options for local natural resources (e.g. DeWulf & Bowen, 2012;Hassenforder et al 2016;Shmueli, 2008). When conceptualising frames as interpretive schemata, it is however necessary to 'reconstruct' the schemata from the idiosyncratic experience through which they are expressed (Johnston, 1995).…”

A system dynamics model for supporting decision-makers in irrigation water management

“…Therefore, WM policies require methods to support the detection, analysis and reduction of conflicts among different users and uses (Giordano et al, 2017;Hassenforder et al, 2016) through a not binding mercantile business. Two decades of research about the management of CPRs suggests that, under particular conditions, local communities can manage shared resources sustainably and successfully (Ostrom 1990).…”

“…The role of participatory frameworks in WM has been also established by the European Water Framework Directive (CEE2000/60), which strongly encourages the active involvement of all the affected parties (Pahl-Wostl 2015). It enriches DMPs mapping out diversity of problem frames (Brugnach and Ingram, 2012;Hassenforder et al, 2016;Giordano et al, 2017) in order to: i) explicitly challenge stakeholders' values; ii) facilitate dialogue across multiple tiers of governance; and iii) establish a shared management process for CPRs (Smajgl 2010). Surely, a DMP with public actors and CPRs generates unpredictable scenarios because of the competing interacting decision-makers (Tsoukiàs, 2007;Daniell, et al, 2016;De Marchi et al, 2016).…”

Four challenges in selecting and implementing methods to monitor and evaluate participatory processes: Example from the Rwenzori region, Uganda

“…Coding was therefore made following both an inductive and a deductive process (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006). Five emerging process variables or "surprises" were identified in such manner: the scale of the process, the use of role-playing-games, and the strategic role played by the problem framing phase, champions and facilitators Hassenforder, Brugnach, et al 2016). These new variables were then added to the interview list of questions which were to be asked after the following workshop.…”