Negotiation of knowledge for coastal management? Reflections from a transdisciplinary experiment in South Africa

Louis Celliers,Dianne Scott,Susan Taljaard,Mvuselelo Ngcoya

doi:10.1057/s41599-021-00887-7

Abstract

Hybrid science-society approaches for knowledge production are often framed by a transdisciplinary approach. Most forms of “linear” progression of science informing policy or the “production” of knowledge as a one-way process are increasingly being challenged. This is also true for coastal and marine sciences informing decision-making to support sustainable development of coastal areas. From the early 2010s, South Africa had one of the most progressive and well-structured frameworks for the establishment of integrated coastal management (ICM) in order to achieve societal objectives for its valuable coastal area. Even so, the implementation of the legislation, policies and guidelines remain a challenge, especially at the local level in municipalities. This paper reports on a social experiment that was intended to examine the possibility for a new knowledge negotiation process to unsettle the highly structured, nested and regular policy process, which forms the basis of ICM in South Africa. This paper reflects on an experimental application of a participatory methodology known as a “competency group” to co-produce knowledge for coastal and marine management. The group members, a combination of codified, tacit and embedded knowledge holders, agreed to serve on a competency group and met on six occasions over a 12-month period in 2013. This group “negotiated” amongst themselves to achieve a common understanding of knowledge useful for the management of beach water quality on the Golden Mile, the prime beachfront of Durban, a South African city. The paper provides a novel lens into a potentially distinctive, challenging and imminently useful approach of co-producing knowledge for coastal governance, especially in a middle-income country where the social and political context is complex.

Highlights

Knowledge production1, the role and authority of science, trust in scientific findings and the contribution of civil society have become hot topics in academia, especially given the substantial socio-environmental challenges of the new century (Dewulf et al, 2020; Norström et al, 2020; Mach et al, 2020)
There has been a strong movement towards hybrid science-society approaches such as transdisciplinary knowledge generation (Vogel et al, 2016; Bremer and Meisch, 2017; Sachs et al, 2019)
This section presents the knowledge controversies that were identified by the participants in the workshops and the competency group; the nature of the competency group process; and the knowledge produced

Summary

Introduction

The role and authority of science, trust in scientific findings and the contribution of civil society have become hot topics in academia, especially given the substantial socio-environmental challenges of the new century (Dewulf et al, 2020; Norström et al, 2020; Mach et al, 2020). Researchers across the disciplinary spectrum are experimenting with and reflecting on such knowledge production processes and methodologies (Hessels and van Lente, 2008; Arnott et al, 2020; Latulippe and Klenk, 2020) To this end, there has been a strong movement towards hybrid science-society approaches such as transdisciplinary knowledge generation (Vogel et al, 2016; Bremer and Meisch, 2017; Sachs et al, 2019). Transdisciplinarity is a form of integrated and inclusive knowledge production with which to address wicked problems that arise in social-ecological systems (Max-Neef, 2005; Bernstein, 2015) It is considered a more democratic process for knowledge production, for policy-making, and for enhancing sustainability (Callon, 1999; Whatmore and Landström, 2011; Polk, 2015; Bulkeley et al, 2018). Transdisciplinarity as an approach includes the participation and contributions from academia, state actors and nonstate actors such as, land managers, user groups, communitybased organisations, non-governmental organisations, business and the public (Choi and Pak, 2007; Stock and Burton, 2011; Polk, 2015)

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