Pathways to Sustainability in the Forest? Misunderstood Dynamics and the Negotiation of Knowledge, Power, and Policy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4138620 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Macedward Leach (0000-0002-1293-6848, University of Sussex, corresponding author), Melissa Leach (0000-0002-8435-5401, ESRC STEPS Centre, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9RE, England) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 40 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 1783-1795 |
| Publication date | 2008-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1068/a40215 |
| OpenAlex | W2007609756 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 31 |
| References cited | 30 |
This paper addresses the challenges of building pathways to Sustainability in the context of contested knowledge and power relations in environment and development. Drawing on two case studies concerning tropical forests in West Africa and the Caribbean, it explores clashes between the conceptions of social-ecological systems embedded in dominant scientific and policy practices, and the more dynamic, nonequilibrial perspectives that emerge from understandings of forest history and users' own experiences. Forest and conservation policy, I find, have persistently ignored these dynamics. Yet, as people and nature have 'bitten back', forest histories are revealed as mutually constituting interplays of ecological process, social practice, policy and intervention, and response. Policy makers often do not see this, and are thus surprised when their schemes fail. In this paper, I argue that alternative analytical approaches are needed that take seriously human-ecological dynamics, history, path dependency, and the ways in which different people frame or construct problems, linked with notions of Sustainability that respect diverse goals-including forest users' own. This, in turn, suggests the need for alternative approaches to the governance of environment and development issues that are more adaptive, deliberative, and reflexive, and for politically engaged efforts to institute these in contexts where pervasive power-knowledge relations perpetuate less dynamic views
Corporate governance · Economics · Environmental ethics · Environmental governance · Environmental resource management · Geography · Management · Negotiation · Political science · Public relations · Reflexivity · Social dynamics · Social science · Social sustainability · Sociology · Sustainability · Sustainability science · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Computer Science · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Ecology
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Multilevel Governance
Stakeholders perspectives of barriers and facilitators of childhood obesity prevention policies in Iran
Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches to Environmental Governance in China
Tackling knowledge and power
The black box of power in polycentric environmental governance
Negotiating knowledge and action for sustainable rangeland management
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Foucault in the forests—A review of the use of ‘Foucauldian’ concepts in forest policy analysis
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Border Crossings
Giving as a total social phenomenon
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Regime Shifts, Resilience, and Biodiversity in Ecosystem Management
Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems
Adaptive Governance of Social-Ecological Systems
Agendas, alternatives, and public policies
Reframing Public Policy
Handbook of Science and Technology Studies
Boundaries of Science
African-American Exploration in West Africa
Environmentality
States of Knowledge
Reflexive Governance for Sustainable Development
Science and Citizens
No timber without trees
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Fixed Categories in a Portable Landscape
Introduction
Contested Forests
The Lie of the Land
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Shooting the Rapids
African-American Exploration in West Africa
African Savannas
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Seeing Like a State
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| Unique citing works | 31 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,72 |
| Citation span | 2008 - 2025 (18) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 28 |