Translation of experience and knowledge in private forest owners’ networks
2018
Felcis, R., University of Latvia, Riga (Latvia)
Fragmentation of private property (142 thousand private forest owners) cause the challenge for governing forests, because forests are part of wider forest ecosystems, but at the same time narrowly assigned by private borders. Land restitution put the new pressures on path dependent management and new possibilities and responsibilities (that were emergent features of private forest governance). This article is part of doctoral thesis about the common governance of private forests with particular aim to focus on describing knowledge and experience exchange in private forest owners’ networks in this paper. The research question for this article is to help to find out how the translation of experience and knowledge manifest itself in private forest owners’ networks? The best theoretical model to fit this situation is the concept of translation from actor-network theory and emergent norm theory. Case study approach was selected to follow actors in forest owners’ networks. The cases are forest owners’ cooperatives, forest owners NGO’s, as well as other forms, in particular, forest extension services and cases where an emergent process can be seen. The empirical material shows that translation of experience and knowledge manifest itself in few important ways, namely, at first, in a negotiation of needs and agreement on private forest owners’ needs; secondly, in stewardship role of multi-functional actors; thirdly, in emerging and evolving legislative norms. A multi-functional actor is a term offered in order to reveal a wide range of mediation forms in multicultural multi nature of forests as governed property and forests as integral part of ecosystems.
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