ABSTRACT
Background
Community-based monitoring provides a forum for diverse stakeholders to co-construct knowledge relevant to building social-ecological resilience. However, power asymmetries between these actors can privilege the perspectives of dominant groups, while preventing non-dominant perspectives from informing conservation science.
Methods
This study investigates a workshop series intended to support young people in designing a watershed monitoring initiative rooted in their own interests with respect to a large dam removal in their community. We use interaction analysis to examine whose ideas are taken up in discussions among young people, educators, conservation professionals, and education researchers.
Findings
Power dynamics that privilege the contributions of credentialed professionals over those of young people can constrain collective learning processes while simultaneously generating tensions that allow for expansive learning to occur. Facilitation practices and other pedagogical moves play an important role in either further entrenching or disrupting hierarchies between youth and community partners.
Contribution
Our analysis reveals how careful attention to interactional dynamics—both as a research method and as a pedagogical practice—can make visible and disrupt epistemic hierarchies in multi-stakeholder learning environments. Problematizing these hierarchies can help broaden the perspectives from which knowledge is generated, a necessary endeavor in building resilient social-ecological systems.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the many students, educators, and conservation professionals so dedicated to environmental stewardship with whom we partnered as part of this project. We would also like to acknowledge those that provided helpful feedback and support on earlier versions of this project and manuscript including Mireya Bejarano, Peggy Harte, Lee Martin, and Cati de los Ríos, as well as the editors and three thoughtful reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Throughout this article, we use pseudonyms to represent the names of specific places, individuals, schools, and organizations to protect the privacy of participants in accordance with the UC Davis Institutional Review Board under Protocol No. 1639055–1.