Beyond Idealistic Glorifications and Categorical Rejections: The co-construction of meaning in dialogue practices in natural resource management

Background

Dialogue has come to be something of a buzzword in natural resource management. A large number of consultations are currently taking place, where stakeholders are invited to address various types of resource-related conflicts through dialogue. Those who organize and participate in these consultations have high expectations of them — they are expected to lead to fewer conflicts, increased understanding, more efficient management, better policy implementation, and greater democracy.

We have identified two different research approaches that examine consultations. One evaluates consultations to determine whether they live up to these high expectations. The other describes the conditions required for dialogue to function as intended and proposes models for improving dialogue in consultations. Thus, research has primarily focused on the conditions, methods, and outcomes of consultations — not on the communication that actually takes place within them, even though communication is the very core of any consultation.

The project

The starting point for this project was the idea that consultations have an established role in modern natural resource management, but that we need a better understanding of how communication within consultations actually takes place in order to assess under what conditions they can genuinely contribute to management in a meaningful way. We also need to understand how consultations can be designed to meet realistic goals while engaging both organizers and participants. The purpose of this project was to develop this foundation.