Abstract
Sustainability science has increasingly adopted more action-oriented approaches in an attempt to mobilise and implement a broad knowledge base to sustain human wellbeing and promote sustainable development. There is an increasing recognition of the importance of knowledge exchange (KE) between scientists and end users of research for enhancing social, environmental and economic impacts of research. Here, we explore the process of KE through close observation of two cases of KE between external PhD researchers and local actors in small-scale fisheries at the community level in Zanzibar, Tanzania. First, we address context by examining perceptions of research held by actors at community level and patterns of interactions and flows of benefits between external researchers and local actors including fisheries managers, local research institute as well as fishers and traders. Second, we unpack experiences of actors engaged in the cases of KE. The study draws attention to KE processes in the Global South and actors outside decision-making processes in fisheries management. The study concludes that as KE is a complex and dynamic process and that (i) history and relationships between actors shape the outcomes of KE, (ii) KE includes more than knowledge-based processes and outcomes because multiple incentives of different actors shape KE and how it is experiences and (iii) knowledge-based outcomes of KE are complex and unpredictable as different actors create their own meaning from shared information. The results exemplify the inevitably complex and unpredictable nature of KE processes and their outcomes, and provide insight into how KE can contribute to science–society relationships.
Highlights
Sustainability science scholars have increasingly focused on bridging science and decision making, as this is considered key to sustainability (Cash et al 2003; Clark et al 2016; Handled by Nicola Grigg, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.Cornell et al 2013; van Kerkhoff and Pilbeam 2017)
This section describes the context in which knowledge exchange (KE) processes took place in terms of interactions between researchers and different local actors, previous experiences of these interactions and perceptions of scientific knowledge
The knowledge governance context for fisheries research in Zanzibar depicts the flows of benefits between 6 key actor groups (a–f), and to/from the external researchers (a)
Summary
Sustainability science scholars have increasingly focused on bridging science and decision making, as this is considered key to sustainability (Cash et al 2003; Clark et al 2016; Handled by Nicola Grigg, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia. Cornell et al 2013; van Kerkhoff and Pilbeam 2017) This is based on the normative assumption that research should have impact in society. Sustainability science has even been described as “fundamentally interventionist” (van Kerkhoff and Pilbeam 2017) as it has adopted more action-oriented approaches to enhance the role of science in decisionmaking (Clark et al 2016; West et al 2019). Scientists are increasingly participating in activities beyond knowledge production such as multi-way interactions and knowledge co-production with decision makers and other beneficiaries of science (Fazey et al 2013; Lemos et al 2018; Singh et al 2014). Folke et al (2005) link the shift in researchers’ roles to rapid environmental changes, which demands researchers to deliver knowledge to managers instead of maintaining their position as objective and detached specialists
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