Role-playing games as boundary objects in an irrigation water sharing conflict in Bhutan

Abstract

Irrigation water sharing is often negotiated between stakeholders with different levels of knowledge and different framing schemes: Scientists and local people, water users and water managers. Forging management agreements thus requires translation from one framing scheme to another. To explore this issue, in this article we investigate the role played by "boundary" objects, which display different meanings in different social worlds while being rigid enough to maintain an identity of their own. This theoretical framework was challenged by the analysis of a companion modelling experiment in Bhutan based on role-playing games. Tracking the game sessions allowed us to specify boundaries between three groups, one of scientists and civil servants and two of villagers. Translation processes were accounted for. This information may be used in practice for the co-construction of new water sharing rules in an adaptive management perspective.