Maureen G. Reed

Power relations and community-based tourism planning

Abstract Recent research on community tourism has adapted organizational theories to tourism contexts. This paper contributes to these efforts by identifying how power relations affect attempts at community-based tourism planning. The proposed conceptual framework focuses on power relations within three policy arenas. A citizen-based tourism planning process in Squamish, Canada, is discussed to illustrate how the framework might be applied. It is concluded that power relations are endemic features of emergent tourism settings. As such, it is unlikely that independent agencies can be identified to convene differences in power across stakeholder groups. Therefore, research should focus on explaining the impacts of power relations on community-based tourism rather than identifying mechanisms to disperse power.

Rescaling environmental governance, rethinking the state: A three-dimensional review

In light of significant interest by scholars in environmental geography and in studies of social-ecological systems in the multiscalar, multistakeholder aspects of environmental decision-making, we focus this review on multilevel systems of environmental governance in which multiple actors exercise different levels of power, authority, and action to determine ‘who gets what’ and ‘who gets to decide’. We describe literature documenting how new geographies of governance have emerged as state functions have been dispersed upwards, downwards, and outwards to non-state actors. We consider ‘What is the role of the state in this reconfiguration of scale and environmental governance?’ We focus on how scale and spatiality is being reconceptualized and how borders are reformed materially and socially through new governance practices, and consider the implications for advancing geographic theory and sound public policy.

Toward a Pluralistic Civic Science?: Assessing Community Forestry

While stakeholder involvement in environmental management is now common, we suggest that stakeholders can contribute to a pluralistic civic science that incorporates local knowledge directly into environmental decision making and research. We consider how insights from feminist scholarship might help us to understand the influence of power relations among our subjects of study and in determining how scientific knowledge is defined and used. We pay particular attention to how knowledge is produced, how participation is constrained, and to what extent community participants and researchers would benefit from critical reflection in their work. We apply these elements to an assessment of a community forestry pilot project in Burns Lake, British Columbia, Canada. Our findings suggest that while local participants have considered community forestry effective, practices have not met the ideals of a pluralistic civic science. We identify some of the reasons for this discrepancy and provide suggestions for future practice.

Marginality and gender at work in forestry communities of British Columbia, Canada

Abstract This paper examines the practices and discourses of forestry work in a Canadian context. I argue that forestry-town women contribute to a paradox. From the outside, womens experiences of forestry employment are rendered marginal by academics, government agencies and policy makers. Womens representations in forestry work are limited, in part, because those who count forestry have historically overlooked types of employment where women are most likely to be found. Paradoxically, I argue that women contribute to their own marginality by their adherence to discourses and practices that reinforce stereotypes about the industry. I explain this paradox developing the concept of social embeddedness to explore womens direct involvement in the paid work of forestry and to examine the meanings women give to forestry occupations. My empirical analysis traces government and academic definitions of forestry work and contrast these to interpretations of forestry work given in interviews by women living in forestry communities on Vancouver Island, Canada. I observe women both protested their marginal positions within forestry while they reinforced dominant stereotypes that exclude them from participating more fully in forestry occupations. I consider the implications of these findings from a theoretical and a policy perspective.

Uneven Environmental Management: A Canadian Comparative Political Ecology

Contemporary researchers of environmental management argue for community-based approaches in which local circumstances, skills, and concerns are respected. However, relying on local capacity opens up the possibility of establishing highly uneven management practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore the roots and effects of uneven environmental management. I develop a conceptual framework that identifies key elements of regional environmental-management regimes and then use it to compare experiences in two areas designated as Canadian biosphere reserves in 2000: Clayoquot Sound, BC, and Redberry Lake, SK. Analysis reveals that differences in property instruments and civic sectors affect the institutional capacity of each locality, opening the door for private forms of environmental governance in Redberry Lake. To explain how property instruments and civic actors operate, I illustrate how processes associated with property exchange, reterritorialization, valuation, and planning work together to produce a relatively robust and public regime at Clayoquot Sound and a more private form of stewardship at Redberry Lake. In consequence, uneven environmental-management practices may take root and reinforce social inequalities across the two regions.

Understanding Community Capacity Using Adaptive and Reflexive Research Practices: Lessons From Two Canadian Biosphere Reserves

Community-based ecosystem management requires understanding a communitys capacity. We argue that communities can make important contributions not only to specific assessments of community capacity, but also to the conceptualization of the term itself through community-based research methods that are both adaptive and reflexive. A research initiative that illustrates such practices is reported here. We begin by describing our initial conceptual framework of community capacity that identified resource capitals and mobilizing factors. In focus groups, residents of two Canadian biosphere reserves used this framework to assess their capacity to meet biosphere reserve mandates and to provide critical reflections that helped to drive revisions to the framework. Our new framework is more sensitive to temporal and spatial dimensions of capacity, local social relations, and local culture. We conclude that adaptive and reflexive community-based offer methodological alternatives for research, help advance conceptions of community capacity, and help produce social change.

Tourism, recreational, and amenity values in land allocation: an analysis of institutional arrangements in the postproductivist era

In this paper, we examine the influence of institutional arrangements on the implementation of local land-use allocations which incorporate tourism, recreational, and amenity (TRA) values, using a case study from British Columbia, Canada. We frame this paper within a conceptualization of postproductivism and pose the question to what extent, and under what conditions, are new local stakeholders, new local agencies, and new local processes effective in allocating land uses which reflect TRA values? Three new land-use proposals which incorporate TRA values are examined to determine where key catalysts for implementation lie. We found that, unlike other research in rural areas of Britain, institutions in British Columbia that have conventionally regulated land use continue to exercise their considerable regulatory and discretionary powers. Though new stakeholders, agencies and processes at the local level have had an impact on planning, they have not been effective in reconfiguring the power structures for actual implementation of land reallocation. This lack of efficacy is attributed in part to the common property character of lands that support TRA values, the associated complexity of property rights regimes, and the large number of stakeholders involved. Furthermore, there is a lack of understanding by regulatory agencies of land resources as community resources, and these agencies continue to grant higher priority to the strategic considerations of higher levels of government rather than to local concerns.

Cooperative Management of Environmental Resources: A Case Study from Northern Ontario, Canada*

AbstractThis paper analyzes the political dynamics of a hinterland locality and a provincial government participating together in a co-management initiative to formulate environmental resource policies. The concept of “local dependency” is adapted for a hinterland setting to evaluate the efficacy of a co-management initiative to allocate access to and manage fish and wildlife resources in northern Ontario, Canada. Results of a case study located in Ignace, Ontario indicate that despite efforts to engage in cooperation, features of local hinterland dependency affected both the process and outcome of the initiative. Broad involvement at the community level was restricted because specific local actors coalesced to skew participation toward a narrow set of economic values. Selected participants in the co-management exercise maintained close control over participation within the community and effectively became a conduit to the senior government for vocal sectors at the local level. The locally dependent statu...

Using Information Technologies for Collaborative Learning in Geography: A case study from Canada

In this paper, we share our experiences in designing, offering and evaluating undergraduate assignments that used information technologies to help undergraduate students from different universities collaborate on resource and environmental management problems in Canada. We focus on conditions of collaborative learning and peer review, especially how our uses of information technology reduced or increased the challenges of creating the conditions necessary for collaboration. In particular, we consider our successes and setbacks regarding five challenges: (1) composing effective groups, (2) providing sufficient time, (3) encouraging individual accountability, (4) enhancing regional perspectives, and (5) incorporating peer review and reducing competitiveness.

Reproducing the gender order in Canadian forestry: The role of statistical representation

Abstract Despite a large literature that addresses the gendered structure of forestry occupations in Europe and the USA, relatively little attention has been paid to these issues in Canada. In this paper, it is argued that policy makers and academics have used outdated statistics about forestry employment to shape policies and programs of government and industry. Use of these data has been to the general disadvantage of women working in the forest industry and in forestry communities. This paper draws mainly on three studies, spanning the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s. Each study relied on secondary sources such as Census data, government and industry documents, as well as primary sources such as interviews or questionnaires. On Vancouver Island, British Columbia, analysis of land reallocation policies and transition strategies for displaced workers in the 1990s did not consider women as forestry workers or consider how job losses and opportunities for retraining might vary between men and women. Consequently, gender-neutral transition strategies were more accessible for men than for women. A study of female forestry workers in Saskatchewan revealed there was very little knowledge about employment conditions for women in forestry. Women reported that they missed out on training and advancement opportunities because they lacked networks, childcare support or other benefits that might encourage them to improve their circumstances. Finally, a survey of forest sector advisory committees across the country revealed a very low rate of participation by women, even though those who did participate had some significantly different viewpoints about forestry than their male counterparts. In combination, these efforts suggest that improvements in the understanding of forestry employment would benefit forestry workers, both male and female, and ensure that all workers made lasting contributions to the industry.