“Seeing power” between young people and conservation professionals in the design of a community-based watershed monitoring initiative

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background Community-based monitoring provides a forum for diverse stakeholders to co-construct knowledge relevant to building social-ecological resilience. However, power asymmetries between these actors can privilege the perspectives of dominant groups, while preventing non-dominant perspectives from informing conservation science. Methods This study investigates a workshop series intended to support young people in designing a watershed monitoring initiative rooted in their own interests with respect to a large dam removal in their community. We use interaction analysis to examine whose ideas are taken up in discussions among young people, educators, conservation professionals, and education researchers. Findings Power dynamics that privilege the contributions of credentialed professionals over those of young people can constrain collective learning processes while simultaneously generating tensions that allow for expansive learning to occur. Facilitation practices and other pedagogical moves play an important role in either further entrenching or disrupting hierarchies between youth and community partners. Contribution Our analysis reveals how careful attention to interactional dynamics—both as a research method and as a pedagogical practice—can make visible and disrupt epistemic hierarchies in multi-stakeholder learning environments. Problematizing these hierarchies can help broaden the perspectives from which knowledge is generated, a necessary endeavor in building resilient social-ecological systems.