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Published VersionCC BY V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Reflections on integrated research from community engagement in peatland restoration
Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, Vol.8, pp.1-11
2021
Abstract
Community engagement and integrated research are key approaches to solving complex socio-ecological challenges. This paper describes the experience of bringing together a team of natural and social scientists from Australia and Indonesia in the ‘Gambut Kita’ (translated as ‘Our Peat’) project. Gambut Kita aims to produce new knowledge and support efforts to successfully, and equitably, restore Indonesia’s tropical peatlands and ensure that livelihoods can be maintained on restored (rewetted) landscapes. The paper focuses on experiences of using community engagement for integrated research. It discusses three community engagement approaches used in the project—resilience, adaptation pathways and transformation approach (RAPTA), participatory rural appraisal (PRA), and community-led analysis and planning (CLAP). It also describes the qualitative analysis of 14 interviews with the project team of lessons learned in community engagement for integrated research. ‘Criteria for success’ from the literature on international development projects is used to assess progress. The findings highlight the specific complexities of working across countries and cultures. Successful community engagement is not so much about the ‘tool’ but about the trust, agency, and support to change. The tools do, however, have different strengths. PRA and CLAP can build deep community understanding and relationships. RAPTA has strengths in framing visions and pathways to the future, systems thinking, anticipatory learning, and taking a cross-scale systems view which is required to solve many of the problems manifesting at local or community scales. Similarly, success in integrated research is not just about individuals, but structures (e.g. explicit process) and infrastructure (e.g. access to technology). These findings suggest that integrated research needs special considerations in terms of design, and these relate across scales to individual researchers as well as teams, leaders and organisations. Integrated research projects need careful, inclusive, iterative management with a lot of interaction to learn from each other, build a common vision, achieve clarity of roles, and share emerging findings.
Details
- Title
- Reflections on integrated research from community engagement in peatland restoration
- Authors
- A. Fleming (Author) - CSIRO Land and WaterS. Agrawal (Author) - Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta (YTS)Dinomika (Author) - Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta (YTS)Y. Fransisca (Author) - RMIT UniversityL. Graham (Author) - Borneo Orangutan Survival FoundationS. Lestari (Author) - Forest Research and Development Center, Ministry of Environment and ForestryD. Mendham (Author) - CSIRO Land and WaterD. O’Connell (Author) - CSIRO Land and WaterB. Paul (Author) - Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta (YTS)M. Po (Author) - CSIRO Land and WaterA. Rawluk (Author) - The University of MelbourneN. Sakuntaladewi (Author) - Center for Research and Development on Social Economy Policy and Climate ChangeB. Winarno (Author) - Forest Research and Development Center, Ministry of Environment and ForestryT. W. Yuwati (Author) - Forest Research and Development Center, Ministry of Environment and Forestry
- Publication details
- Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, Vol.8, pp.1-11
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date published
- 2021
- DOI
- 10.1057/s41599-021-00878-8
- ISSN
- 2662-9992
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- Organisation Unit
- Tropical Forests and People Research Centre; University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; Forest Research Institute
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99579608802621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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- Web Of Science research areas
- Humanities, Multidisciplinary
- Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
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