Abstract
Place-based communities are struggling to maintain their connections to land and water, including the social and cultural practices that are rooted in a particular landscape. In this paper, we consider possibilities for recentering environmental governance around reciprocal relations, or the mutual caretaking between people and place. We draw from existing scholarship on relational values and human-nature relations, which emphasize the intrinsic value and agency of non-human beings and the landscape itself. By linking key concepts in the literature to our four case studies, we develop a framework of reciprocal relations as a foundation for local practices and governance policies that facilitate increased community access to land and resources. Our cases investigate the practice of reciprocal relations across different community contexts in Hawaiʻi, British Columbia (Canada), the Appalachian Mountain Region (U.S.), and Madagascar. Through our analysis, we examine a diverse range of community approaches to reciprocal relations, and demonstrate how practicing reciprocal relations can have material effects on community well-being and environmental sustainability. This finding builds on the theory of access (Ribot and Peluso 2003), by suggesting that practicing reciprocal relations can provide a powerful mechanism for shifting community access to resources. In the reciprocal relations context, however, the flow of benefits is not uni-directional. Expanding on existing access concepts, we show how the ability of a place-based community to benefit from resources is contingent upon its ability to maintain multi-directional and mutually beneficial relations with the natural environment—in part through fulfilling caretaking responsibilities for land and water.
Highlights
Many place-based and Indigenous communities with strong connections to local landscapes have created sustainable resource management institutions that respond to changing social and environmental conditions (Ostrom 1990)
We investigate the practice of reciprocal relations for exemplar communities in Hawai‘i, British Columbia (Canada), the Appalachian mountain region (U.S.), and Madagascar that are all actively cultivating stewardship of natural resources in the face of economic, political, and ecological pressures
We develop an inclusive concept of reciprocal relations
Summary
Many place-based and Indigenous communities with strong connections to local landscapes have created sustainable resource management institutions that respond to changing social and environmental conditions (Ostrom 1990). As a response to such community struggles, we consider recentering environmental governance around reciprocal relations, or the mutual caretaking between people and place. A recent New Zealand decision to grant legal personhood to the Whanganui River led to significant changes in status quo management practices This legal settlement is rooted in the reciprocal relationships between the Maori people and the river, expressed in Maori language as “Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au.” (I am the River, and the River is me.) In this case, reframing river governance through reciprocal relations enabled direct representation for the Whanganui River within a new environmental governance institution (Whanganui River Maori Trust Board 2014; O’Donnell and Talbot-Jones 2018). Our comparative case studies include Native Hawaiian communities restoring local level fisheries governance, First Nation communities in British Columbia (Canada) practicing restoration forestry, coastal fishers in Madagascar responding to marine enclosures, and community watershed organizations in Appalachia rehabilitating former coal mining areas (U.S.)
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