Society Research Theme

Encompassing the governance and socio-cultural dimensions of nature recovery.

About

This theme examines how ‘nature recovery’ is defined and governed at multiple scales across diverse landscapes, how its costs and benefits are distributed, and what lessons this holds for promoting equitable and restorative human-nature relations. The initial focus will be on case study landscapes in the UK and Ghana supporting a range of land uses, including conservation, recreation and the production of food and fibre for commercial and subsistence use.

One research strand examines the political ecology of nature recovery at multiple scales, with a strong emphasis on the design and implementation of participatory approaches to co-creating and managing nature recovery. This includes analysis of existing and proposed public and private policies, laws and standards for public participation in nature restoration and land use decision-making and how they intersect with grassroots and business recovery initiatives and local landowner engagements.

As part of this work, we will explore complementarities and tensions between scientific knowledge, including that generated by this project, and local knowledge of nature and place, and how different knowledge claims are used, accepted or rejected, and by whom. We will also examine how nature recovery efforts shape equality of access to land, nature and finance across diverse social groups.

Our second strand examines different cultural understandings of nature and how these configure the possibilities for nature recovery. We anticipate that successful strategies for nature recovery will require broad cultural support from landowners, farmers, citizens, and their representatives. But we know that these groups often disagree about what nature is and how it ought to be managed. We will investigate how culture and group identity shape different patterns of behaviour that impact nature recovery. We are especially interested what digital media tell us about popular understandings of nature and in the potential of digital technologies to enable new forms of environmental citizenship.

Theme lead

Constance McDermott
Jamie inside brown wall
Jamie Lorimer

Projects

Theme outputs

    Kumeh, E.M (2024). The political ecology of cocoa agroforestry and implications for equitable land use in rural Ghana.. Agroforest Syst.

    The relevance of cocoa agroforestry is widely discussed in debates on sustainability transition in cocoa, especially in the context of ending hunger and poverty among cocoa farmers. Whereas this has led to multiple cocoa agroforestry investments by NGOs, governments, and cocoa and chocolate companies in West and Central Africa, a notable gap exists in the literature on how these interventions respond to the needs of cocoa farmers who are typically framed as the primary target of equity in cocoa sustainability discussions. This paper contributes to bridging this gap by analyzing equity in implementing various cocoa agroforestry projects by different actors in Ghana’s Juabeso-Bia Landscape (JBL)

    Publications
    LCNR supported
    • Remote sensing
    • Scale and Technology
    • Society

    Caitlin Hafferty, Mark S. Reed, Beth F.T. Brockett, Scott Orford, Robert Berry, Chris Short, Joshua Davis (2024). Engagement in the digital age: Understanding “what works” for participatory technologies in environmental decision-making. Journal of Environmental Management .

    Paper published in the Journal of Environmental Management examining the benefits and drawbacks of digital tools for engagement. The paper tests the applicability of current theories for engagement in digital and remote settings, finding that key factors known to shape outcomes in engagement take on new dimensions in digital environments. New considerations are suggested which make engagement theory more relevant and applicable in digital contexts, with actionable recommendations for practitioners.

    Publications
    LCNR associated
    • Society

    Caitlin Hafferty, Audrey Wagner, Constance L McDermott, Mark Hirons (2024). Unpacking the politics of Nature-based Solutions governance: Making space for transformative change. SSRN.

    Pre-print paper on the politics of Nature-based Solutions governance for transformative change. This paper finds that dominant framings can end up undermining, rather than supporting, the changes that are needed for transformation to happen. Techno-centric and market-oriented approaches, perceptions of risk and uncertainty, and “democracy washing” risk perpetuating power imbalances and superficial participation. Making space for transformative change requires a commitment to cultivate and open up – rather than control and close down – alternative perspectives, pathways, and possibilities that foster justice and well-being for humans and nature.

    Publications
    LCNR supported
    • Society
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