From the bottom up? Involving knowledge and stakeholders from coastal communities in higher-level governance
(2023) MARE People and the Sea Conference 2023- Abstract
- How to include knowledge and actors from local and regional levels like small-scale fishers and their communities in overarching governance frameworks? This is a pertinent question for ongoing Blue Economy processes, as highlighted e.g., in the Manifesto from the 2021 MARE conference. In an ongoing “from research to practice” project, we investigate how to include local and regional perspectives and knowledges for aligning community concerns with higher-level policies and regulations. We study how applied methods and techniques for participation enable or disable the inclusion of regional and local interests and visions in Swedish fisheries management. The project responds to a lack of including local aspects, regional differences, and... (More)
- How to include knowledge and actors from local and regional levels like small-scale fishers and their communities in overarching governance frameworks? This is a pertinent question for ongoing Blue Economy processes, as highlighted e.g., in the Manifesto from the 2021 MARE conference. In an ongoing “from research to practice” project, we investigate how to include local and regional perspectives and knowledges for aligning community concerns with higher-level policies and regulations. We study how applied methods and techniques for participation enable or disable the inclusion of regional and local interests and visions in Swedish fisheries management. The project responds to a lack of including local aspects, regional differences, and local knowledge in higher-level fisheries governance. Project results show that not only a lack of inclusion hinders meaningful participation and involvement, but also problems related to channeling local knowledge into existing systems with complex rules and technicalities. While local actors ‘fear’ ongoing downward trends in coastal communities resulting from declining coastal fisheries, they often lack the expertise, resources, and capacity to participate meaningfully in discussions with agencies and authorities. A survey in our project shows that municipal practitioners and politicians ask for regional cooperation including exchange of knowledge and experiences to better understand the challenges and possibilities for achieving sustainable fisheries in their regions.
A recently formed network aims to address these challenges and support municipalities in their work with developing local fisheries, aquaculture and fishing tourism. Hitherto Swedish municipalities have by tradition not been involved in fisheries management. In collaboration with local actors and the network, our project tries to elucidate opportunities and challenges for involving Swedish coastal fishing communities in higher-level policy and decision-making. We relate this to overarching questions on how to align bottom-up with existing top-down approaches for activating local and regional actors in higher level governance systems.
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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/3ed4ff72-171a-44eb-81fb-1859bbbb9426
- author
- Wingren, Ida LU and Linke, Sebastian
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Fisheries and coastal governance, community development, local knowledge, barriers of participation and inclusion, municipal network
- conference name
- MARE People and the Sea Conference 2023
- conference location
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- conference dates
- 2023-06-26 - 2023-06-30
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 3ed4ff72-171a-44eb-81fb-1859bbbb9426
- date added to LUP
- 2024-10-31 17:28:53
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 14:23:28
@misc{3ed4ff72-171a-44eb-81fb-1859bbbb9426,
abstract = {{How to include knowledge and actors from local and regional levels like small-scale fishers and their communities in overarching governance frameworks? This is a pertinent question for ongoing Blue Economy processes, as highlighted e.g., in the Manifesto from the 2021 MARE conference. In an ongoing “from research to practice” project, we investigate how to include local and regional perspectives and knowledges for aligning community concerns with higher-level policies and regulations. We study how applied methods and techniques for participation enable or disable the inclusion of regional and local interests and visions in Swedish fisheries management. The project responds to a lack of including local aspects, regional differences, and local knowledge in higher-level fisheries governance. Project results show that not only a lack of inclusion hinders meaningful participation and involvement, but also problems related to channeling local knowledge into existing systems with complex rules and technicalities. While local actors ‘fear’ ongoing downward trends in coastal communities resulting from declining coastal fisheries, they often lack the expertise, resources, and capacity to participate meaningfully in discussions with agencies and authorities. A survey in our project shows that municipal practitioners and politicians ask for regional cooperation including exchange of knowledge and experiences to better understand the challenges and possibilities for achieving sustainable fisheries in their regions. <br/><br/>A recently formed network aims to address these challenges and support municipalities in their work with developing local fisheries, aquaculture and fishing tourism. Hitherto Swedish municipalities have by tradition not been involved in fisheries management. In collaboration with local actors and the network, our project tries to elucidate opportunities and challenges for involving Swedish coastal fishing communities in higher-level policy and decision-making. We relate this to overarching questions on how to align bottom-up with existing top-down approaches for activating local and regional actors in higher level governance systems.<br/>}},
author = {{Wingren, Ida and Linke, Sebastian}},
keywords = {{Fisheries and coastal governance; community development; local knowledge; barriers of participation and inclusion; municipal network}},
language = {{eng}},
title = {{From the bottom up? Involving knowledge and stakeholders from coastal communities in higher-level governance}},
year = {{2023}},
}