Over the past decade, widespread concern has emerged over how environmental governance can be transformed to avoid impending catastrophes such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and livelihood ...insecurity. A variety of approaches have emerged, focusing on either politics, technological breakthrough, social movements, or macro-economic processes as the main drivers of change. In contrast, this paper presents theoretical insights about how systemic change in environmental governance can be triggered by critical and intellectually grounded social actors in specific contexts of environment and development. Conceptualising such actors as critical action intellectuals (CAI), we analyze how CAI emerge in specific socio-environmental contexts and contribute to systemic change in governance. CAI trigger transformative change by shifting policy discourse, generating alternative evidence, and challenging dominant policy assumptions, whilst aiming to empower marginalized groups. While CAI do not work in a vacuum, nor are the sole force in transformation, we nevertheless show that the praxis of CAI within fields of environmental governance has the potential to trigger transformation. We illustrate this through three cases of natural resource governance in Nepal, Nicaragua and Guatemala, and Kenya, where the authors themselves have engaged as CAI. We contribute to theorising the ‘how’ of transformation by showing the ways CAI praxis reshape fields of governance and catalyze transformation, distinct from, and at times complementary to, other dominant drivers such as social movements, macroeconomic processes or technological breakthroughs.
There has been growing interest in understanding innovation in developing countries. This is in recognition of the fact that low- and middle-income economies typically have 'developing' innovation ...systems characterized by relatively weak institutions and fragmented actor constellations that restrain interactive learning. The current innovation systems literature tends to overestimate the role of governments as agents of resource allocation while underestimating the importance of civil society in improving basic institutions of the market economy. This literature tends to overlook the particularly important role of non-governmental actors, such as grassroots civil societies in grassroots innovation. This paper seeks to address two basic questions: How important is the role played by civil society organizations in low-carbon innovation systems? What are the specific roles and what challenges do they face in performing these roles? The paper analyses the role of civil society through the lens of low-carbon innovation. Empirical data were generated using both structured and semi-structured questionnaires targeting innovators in a low-carbon innovation country: Kenya. The paper shows that civil society plays a crucial role in low-carbon innovation in terms of learning and competence-building in Kenya. The study recommends major interventions in terms of a policy framework to recognize and institutionalize civil society as important players in innovation at the grassroots level.
•Adaptation interventions may reinforce, redistribute or create new vulnerability.•Retrofitting adaptation into existing development agendas risks maladaptation.•Overcoming these challenges demands ...engaging more deeply with vulnerability contexts.•Real involvement of marginalised groups is required to improve use of climate finance.•Unless adaptation is rethought, transformation may also worsen vulnerability.
This paper critically reviews the outcomes of internationally-funded interventions aimed at climate change adaptation and vulnerability reduction. It highlights how some interventions inadvertently reinforce, redistribute or create new sources of vulnerability. Four mechanisms drive these maladaptive outcomes: (i) shallow understanding of the vulnerability context; (ii) inequitable stakeholder participation in both design and implementation; (iii) a retrofitting of adaptation into existing development agendas; and (iv) a lack of critical engagement with how ‘adaptation success’ is defined. Emerging literature shows potential avenues for overcoming the current failure of adaptation interventions to reduce vulnerability: first, shifting the terms of engagement between adaptation practitioners and the local populations participating in adaptation interventions; and second, expanding the understanding of ‘local’ vulnerability to encompass global contexts and drivers of vulnerability. An important lesson from past adaptation interventions is that within current adaptation cum development paradigms, inequitable terms of engagement with ‘vulnerable’ populations are reproduced and the multi-scalar processes driving vulnerability remain largely ignored. In particular, instead of designing projects to change the practices of marginalised populations, learning processes within organisations and with marginalised populations must be placed at the centre of adaptation objectives. We pose the question of whether scholarship and practice need to take a post-adaptation turn akin to post-development, by seeking a pluralism of ideas about adaptation while critically interrogating how these ideas form part of the politics of adaptation and potentially the processes (re)producing vulnerability. We caution that unless the politics of framing and of scale are explicitly tackled, transformational interventions risk having even more adverse effects on marginalised populations than current adaptation.
In this paper, we explore the interactions between political, social and environmental changes and forest governance in Kenya, through a study of Mukogodo forest in Laikipia county. Drawing on ...findings from key informant and group interviews as well as analysis of policy documents, we argue that political reform processes – including devolution and changing land and forest policies – combined with “green militarisation” and socio-environmental changes have profound implications for the politics of forest governance in Mukogodo. The way policy reforms interact with wider political dynamics has important implications for the management of environmental change. We find that competing claims to authority both within and between communities are exacerbated by increasingly weaponised resource management regimes, electoral politics and a territorialisation of resource rights. Contestations and tensions between different social groups ensue as some gain secure access to forest resources while others do not. Claims to decision-making authority over resources or to socio-political positions in general are often made based on ethnicity, gender, age, clan, education levels or other dimensions of social differentiation. The way that groups and organisations portray others as mismanaging the forest – and themselves as solving the problem – also forms part of how authority claims are being made in forest governance. The result is a forest governance regime that exhibits less flexibility and cooperation between social groups living in and around the forest, thus undermining livestock mobility and other practices that are critical for the resilience of pastoral systems in a changing climate.
•The politics of forest governance are infused with contestations over authority.•Policy reforms and militarisation shift patterns of authority in forest governance.•Overlapping claims to authority exacerbate inter-group tensions.•Policy reforms produce particular types of subjectivities.•Forest governance in a changing climate requires flexibility and inclusiveness.
Sclerocarya birrea (A. Rich.) Hochst. (marula) is native to Africa occurring in the semi-arid, deciduous savannas of much of sub-Saharan Africa. It has multiple uses, including the fruits, kernels, ...oil, bark, wood and leaves which make it a key species to support the development of rural enterprises. Enhancing positive interactions between marula and other crops is key to successful introduction of marula into the farming systems in the arid and semiarid areas of Africa. The objective of the study was to determine the influence of various combinations of marula, Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br. (millet) and Zea mays (corn) with one another when inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi. A three-chambered acrylic root boxes were used. One outer chamber contained seedlings of S. birrea while the other contained millet or com or bare soil. The central chamber was either inoculated with an AM fungus (Gigaspora margarita Baker and Hall) or uninoculated. Inoculation in the presence of the two crops enhanced both biomass production and height growth of marula seedlings. Both hyphal density and number of spores in marula compartments were increased under intercropping system compared to marula monoculture. The study demonstrated that intercropping marula with millet or com could help in the propagation of AM fungi spores in the soil which would enhance marula establishment especially in soil with low phosphorous and moisture scarcity.
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