From self-governance to shared governance: Institutional change and bricolage in Brazilian extractive reserves

Abstract

Institutional Bricolage can be a useful concept to understand how institutional change has occurred in natural resource governance. As an adaptive process, agents involved in governance blend rules, traditions, norms, symbolisms, and authority relationships, modifying old arrangements and inventing new ones. In this paper, we use the concept of Institutional Bricolage to analyze how institutional change has occurred during the implementation of marine extractive reserves in Brazil. We present examples of institutional adjustments, when formal or bureaucratic institutions interact with those socially built, in process of aggregation, alteration and/or articulation. We also discuss the influence of power, political and party dynamics on shared governance, and bring reflections on the governance of protected areas through the lens of Critical Institutionalism. Our findings reveal the importance of more flexible institutional designs, exploring questions that may guide a new research agenda on community conservation that is more coherent with local realities.