Gobernanza adaptativa en construcción: Personas, prácticas y políticas en una reserva de biosfera de la UNESCO

Abstract

Adaptive governance (AG) has emerged as a prominent approach for understanding and improving governance responses to complex sustainability challenges. Key elements include learning and collaboration across sectors and scales towards a shared vision, through monitoring, information-sharing, network-building and conflict resolution. We briefly introduce AG to a broader audience and identify two crucial research frontiers in the literature: (i) the need to explore how AG ‘emerges’ in particular contexts, and (ii) the need to develop accounts of AG rooted in the everyday experiences of those tasked with doing it. Accordingly, we develop an analytical lens centered around ‘people, practices and politics,’ and apply it in an empirical case study of the potential emergence of AG in the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Region, South Africa. Our study highlights how AG stems from daily decisions and practices, and is shaped by the interplay of meaning and action.