Abstract
This study examines the application of mixed-method and participatory approaches to conservation and development research. Both approaches were applied in a research project on the relationship between ecosystem governance and the wellbeing of local communities adjacent to a protected area in Laos. By encouraging four of the involved field researchers to reflect upon and expose their practical approaches as scientific experts (in terms of methodologies, objectives, reliability of results and research influence), this article aims to improve our learning from research practice and to promote reflexivity in research. The reflexive study presented here emphasizes the social and political context or real world situation against which research outputs can and should be evaluated, and retrospectively sheds light on the barriers to reach research objectives. In essence, the article addresses the relation between science and policy, and underlines the political undercurrent of conservation and development research in facilitating institutional change. The article outlines the very role of researchers in developing conservation policies, and provides a foundation for institutions and individual researchers to promote critical and constructive self-reflections in scientific practices.
Highlights
Nature conservation and development goals have increasingly merged on the international scene (Miller, 2014) illustrated by the emergence of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) schemes, trickling down to national and sub-national scale projects, and blending with decentralized and participatory management initiatives in Protected Areas (e.g. Balooni and Lund, 2014; Pasgaard and Mertz, 2016; Sills et al, 2014)
With special focus on participation, Cornwall (2008), Evans et al (2006) and others critically discuss the meanings and practices of participatory approaches in terms of potential misuse and political aspects, and Cooke and Kothari (2001) even go as far as to condemn the ‘‘tyranny of participation’’, claiming that participatory approaches can lead to injustice and illegitimate exercise of power by advocates of development, who misuse its attractive rhetoric by imposing their own ideological biases on the research methods, results and the institutional outcomes their research contributes to
Calls to integrate reflexivity into for instance livelihoods research have been made (Prowse, 2010), suggestions to add self-ethnography in development practice have been aired (Mosse, 2005), and debates challenging conservationists to be explicit about their hard choices have been raised (McShane et al, 2011). Such practical reflections from conservation and development researchers are largely missing or merely feature as good intentions (Cornell et al, 2013, p. 61) with very little concrete details (for an inspiring reflexive dialogue on the role of geographers in the politics of knowledge on global environmental change, see Castree (2015a, b)). Our study addresses this reflexive gap by exploring how researchers bring the plural perspectives of ecosystem services (ES) and wellbeing studies into conservation and development practice to facilitate institutional change
Summary
Nature conservation and development goals have increasingly merged on the international scene (Miller, 2014) illustrated by the emergence of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and Reduced Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) schemes, trickling down to national and sub-national scale projects, and blending with decentralized and participatory management initiatives in Protected Areas (e.g. Balooni and Lund, 2014; Pasgaard and Mertz, 2016; Sills et al, 2014). Academic scholars are trying to keep up with progress through a plethora of research projects and publications, some with an explicit but hotly debated agenda of facilitating institutional change (Castree, 2015a,b; Cornell et al, 2013; Milkoreit et al, 2015; Thiel et al, 2015) This debate puts into question the role of science, scientists and research practices. Pasgaard et al / Global Ecology and Conservation 9 (2017) 50–60 in conservation and development politics; a complicated question which has been debated and addressed empirically by scholars across fields Such debates about science and scientists facilitating institutional change are rooted in a long-standing (cf Gieryn, 1983; Hoppe, 2005) and ongoing With special focus on participation, Cornwall (2008), Evans et al (2006) and others critically discuss the meanings and practices of participatory approaches in terms of potential misuse and political aspects, and Cooke and Kothari (2001) even go as far as to condemn the ‘‘tyranny of participation’’, claiming that participatory approaches can lead to injustice and illegitimate exercise of power by advocates of development, who misuse its attractive rhetoric by imposing their own ideological biases on the research methods, results and the institutional outcomes their research contributes to
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