Abstract
The recent proliferation of citizen initiatives that aim to contribute to sustainable landscape transition prompted us to study how members of such an initiative in-the-making try to position themselves in their environment in order to make a meaningful contribution. We use a single case study in the east of the Netherlands to study how members discursively construct identities and ambitions through the inclusion of people and ideas over time. We applied an interactional framing analysis to 20 audio-recorded and transcribed meetings of the citizen initiative. The results show that various actors and ideas were included over time, resulting in the construction of different ambitions and identities over time. Ambitions changed in response to new event and changing circumstances. To justify these changing ambitions, the members constructed new identities during their conversations, using different interactional framing strategies. The study reveals that the process of finding an ambition and identity continuously changed direction, paradoxically, due to a lack of direction that hindered the members in making coherent and sustainable decisions. We conclude that a citizen initiative should actively interact with their relation groups to find a direction that supports the process of effectively positioning their initiative and contributes to the shared goal of improving the quality of the living environment.
Highlights
Our physical environment, and that of many species worldwide, is under threat
Our study focuses on how the members of the Sustainable Landscape Initiative in-the-making negotiate their identity and ambition
We explored the dynamics in ambitions and identities of a citizen initiative in-the-making searching for opportunities to contribute to the development of a sustainable landscape in their region in the east of the Netherlands
Summary
That of many species worldwide, is under threat. Demands and impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, food production systems, energy transition, and flood-risk protection are putting our landscape under pressure [1,2]. There is a proliferation of self-organised citizen initiatives in support of improving the quality of the living environment [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. Academics generally refer to these forms as ‘citizen initiatives’, but terms such as civic engagement, grassroots initiatives, community initiatives, civic initiatives, and citizen-led development are used [10]. Such initiatives often emerge out of self-reliance, in response to discontent with current ways of doing [21] and their vision of a creating a better society [22]. Examples of such citizen initiatives can be found in the provisioning of green space [24], landscape conservation [25], urban–rural fringes [26], improving liveability [27], urban regeneration [19], and revitalising rural areas [28]
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