Continuation and discontinuation of local institution in community based natural resource management

Currently the push toward frontier areas, which until twenty years ago were still largely untouched by commercial agriculture, is taking place on a massive scale. This push is being driven not the least by global economic developments, such as the price increase of agriculture commodities like coffee and cocoa. In most cases the indigenous communities become trapped between the state monopoly in natural resource management and the competition for resources by external actors. In this processes the indigenous communities start to lose their access to resources. Another victim in this process is the environment where the natural resources are imbedded. International and national organizations working to conserve environment have became conscious of the important role that indigenous people could fulfill as partners in this endeavour. This partnership in struggle has produced a new discourse on the relationship between indigenous people and their environment. As a further consequence, programs were set up to develop what became known as Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) with its numerous variations. Based on a case study in a village on the eastern border of the Lore Lindu National Park in Central Sulawesi, this study questioned the basic assumption behind the concept of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM). Namely the assumption that communities living at the margin of forest are socially and culturally homogenous, still more or less egalitarian, and basically living in harmony with their natural environment. This study was inspired by the persistent critique – although still a minority – on the basic assumption the CBNRM from academicians and practitioners working through the Entitlement perspective. Another inspiration was the mounting critique toward the participatory approach. In its effort the study explore further the usefulness of certain approaches. One of the approach much relied on in this study was the local history of the community studied, through exerting oral and local written documents on local history, legends and local stories. These sources proofed quite capable in bringing the local history into the light. Another was the actor oriented approach, which later came to be supported by the concept of Social Pool Resources. The latter concept proofed to be useful as analytical instrument to integrate social institutions and the common pool resources, as a field of action for the different actors as human agencies.

Finding Spaces for Urban Food Production – Matching Spatial and Stakeholder Analysis with Urban Agriculture Approaches in the Urban Renewal Area of Dortmund-Hörde, Germany

Using the case of an economically declined neighbourhood in the post-industrial German Ruhr Area (sometimes characterized as Germany’s “Rust Belt”), we analyse, describe and conclude how urban agriculture can be used as a catalyst to stimulate and support urban renewal and regeneration, especially from a socio-cultural perspective. Using the methodological framework of participatory action research, and linking bottom-up and top-down planning approaches, a project path was developed to include the population affected and foster individual responsibility for their district, as well as to strengthen inhabitants and stakeholder groups in a permanent collective stewardship for the individual forms of urban agriculture developed and implemented. On a more abstract level, the research carried out can be characterized as a form of action research with an intended transgression of the boundaries between research, planning, design, and implementation. We conclude that by synchronously combining those four domains with intense feedback loops, synergies for the academic knowledge on the potential performance of urban agriculture in terms of sustainable development, as well as the benefits for the case-study area and the interests of individual urban gardeners can be achieved.

An Inquiry of Changes in Environmental Governance by Community-driven Process

Urban environmental depletion has been a critical problem among industrialized-transformed societies, especially at the local level where administrative authorities’ capacity lags behind changes. Derived from governance concept, the idea of civil society inclusion is highlighted. Focusing on an agglomerated case study, Bang Plee Community in Thailand, this research investigates on a non-state sector, 201-Community organization, as an agent for changes to improve urban environments on solid waste collection. Two roles are contested: as an agent for neighborhood internal change and as an intermediary toward governance changes in state-civil society interaction. By employing longitudinal analysis via a project intervention as research experiment, the outcomes of both roles are detected portrayed in three spheres: state, state-civil society interaction, and civil society sphere. It discovers in the research regarding agglomerated context that as an internal changes for environmental betterment, 201-Community organization operation brings on waste reduction at the minimal level. Community-based organization as an agent for changes – despite capacity input it still limited in efficiency and effectiveness – can mobilize fruitfully only at the individual and network level of civil society sectors, while fails managing at the organizational level. The positive outcomes result by economic waste incentive associated with a limited-bonded group rather than the rise of awareness at large. As an intermediary agent for shared governance, the community-based organization cannot bring on mutual dialogue with state as much as cannot change the state’s operation arena of solid waste management. The findings confine the shared governance concept that it does not applicable in agglomerated locality as an effective outcome, both in terms of being instrumental toward civil society inclusion and being provocative of internal change. Shared environmental governance as summarized in this research can last merely a community development action. It distances significantly from civil society inclusion and empowerment. However, the research proposes that community-based environmental management and shared governance toward civil society inclusion in urban environmental improvement are still an expectable option and reachable if their factors and conditions of key success and failure are intersected with a particular context. Further studies demand more precise on scale, scope, and theses factors of environmental management operation operated by civil society sectors.

Mobiles Lernen

In ihrer Arbeit "Mobiles Lernen. Analyse des Wissenschaftsprozesses der britischen und deutschsprachigen medienpädagogischen und erziehungswissenschaftlichen Mobile-Learning-Diskussion." zeichnet Judith Seipold die Phasen und Entwicklungslinien der bisherigen und naturwüchsigen Diskussion um das Mobile Lernen nach. Dabei eröffnet sie mit ihrer Analyse des vornehmlich britischen Wissenschaftsprozesses des Mobilen Lernens ab Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts den Blick auf die Struktur der medienpädagogischen und erziehungswissenschaftlichen Mobile-Learning-Diskussion, auf deren Kontexte, Bezugspunkte, Perspektiven und theoretische Schwerpunkte, aber auch Erfolge und Problembereiche in der praktischen Umsetzung des Lernens mit Mobiltechnologien in formalisierten Lernkontexten wie dem des Schulunterrichts. Auf diese Weise liefert die Autorin eine Systematik, die nicht nur die britische Diskussion für die deutschsprachige Medienpädagogik verfügbar macht, sondern auch eine neue und systematisch begründete Reflexionsebene für eine aktuelle medienpädagogische Entwicklung – das Mobile Lernen – bildet. Zunächst widmet sich die Autorin der Analyse des Wissenschaftsprozesses der bisherigen britischen und teils auch der deutschsprachigen Mobile-Learning-Diskussion. Um diesen Prozess in seiner Struktur greifbar zu machen, skizziert sie die Bezugsdisziplinen, aus denen die medienpädagogische und erziehungswissenschaftliche Mobile-Learning-Forschung schöpft, arbeitet die Legitimationsbasis auf, auf die sich Mobiles Lernen stützt, zeichnet die historische Entwicklung der Diskussion nach, die sowohl Alltagsnutzung von Mobiltechnologien als auch den Fachdiskurs einschließt, und erläutert innerhalb ihres Modells der Phasen und Entwicklungslinien Mobilen Lernens Theorien, Konzepte und Modelle, die in der Mobile-Learning-Community als zentral für Analyse und Planung Mobilen Lernens erachtet werden. Konzepte und Modelle, die in der Mobile-Learning-Diskussion die Rolle der Lernenden in das Zentrum der Betrachtungen rücken und eine explizite Handlungsorientierung unterstützen, sind Kernbereich des theoriebasierten Teils der Arbeit. Überlegungen zu einer „Sozio-kulturellen Ökologie Mobilen Lernens“, zu „user-generated contexts“ und zu einer „kulturökologisch informierten Didaktik des Mobilen Lernens“ sind dabei sowohl reflektierende Einordnung aktueller Konzepte und Modelle als auch theoretische und konzeptionelle Basis für die praktische Umsetzung Mobilen Lernens. Um die Rolle der Handlungskompetenzen, kulturellen Praktiken und Strukturen der Lerner bei der Nutzung von Mobiltechnologien für Lernen analytisch zu fassen, finden im Praxis-Kapitel Planungs- und Analyseschemata unter Rückgriff auf Beispiele aus der Praxisforschung und der Implementierung mobilen Lernens in den Schulunterricht Anwendung. Ihre Erörterungen rahmt die Autorin abschließend kritisch und weist zum einen auf bildungspolitische, strukturelle und handlungspraktische Implikationen hin, die sich aus der Mobile-Learning-Diskussion ergeben; zum anderen lenkt sie das Augenmerk auf Gegensätze und Dialektiken des Mobilen Lernens, die sich im Spannungsfeld zwischen alltäglicher mobiler Mediennutzung und der teils theoretisch informierten schulischen Verwendung von Mobiltechnologien zum Lernen entfalten. Sie gilt es, im weiteren Verlauf der Diskussion zu hinterfragen und aufzulösen.