Bridging knowledge frames and networks in climate and water governance

A book edited by Jurian Edelenbos, Nanny Bressers and Peter Scholten about "Water Governance as Connective Capacity" has just been published by Ashgate. Art Dewulf and Katrien Termeer have contributed to a chapter on "Bridging knowledge frames and networks in climate and water governance".

Here's an extract from the introduction to the chapter:

Addressing the challenge of water governance in view of climate change requires the best of available knowledge, sensible ways to deal with the inherent uncertainties, and, as we will argue in this paper, bridging diverging knowledge frames and networks. The fate of diverse knowledge frames and networks in the climate domain is directly relevant for water governance – why investing in e.g. hydropower or water storage capacity if climate change isn’t much of a problem, as climate skeptic activists and some political parties claim. In a field as knowledge-intensive as water and climate policy – without sophisticated models climate change wouldn’t even be recognized as an issue – a thorough understanding is needed of how knowledge is produced in networks, how knowledge links to conflicting perspectives or frames and how diverse ways of knowing can be bridged.

The type of connective capacity we address in this chapter focuses on connecting knowledge frames and, as we will argue, therefore also knowledge networks. By combining knowledge and frames into the concept of knowledge frames, we stress the point that frames embody particular kinds of knowledge, and that knowledge implies a specific frame of reference about what is important and what not. The variety of different knowledge frames that different stakeholders bring with them cannot be reduced in a straightforward way (Brugnach et al., 2008). Adding more and more information is likely to increase ambiguity instead of reducing it. What is needed then is more and more varied cues and mechanisms that enable debate, clarification, and enactment more than simply provide large amounts of data, in order to create meaning through discussion and joint interpretation (Dewulf et al., 2005b). The goal is to achieve frame connection (Dewulf et al., 2011) rather than frame integration, because complete integration would do away with the valuable differences and creative tension between frames. The connective capacity that focuses on knowledge frames can be carried by institutions and arrangements such as boundary organizations, but importantly also by instruments such as boundary objects and by the agency of individuals or groups through boundary experiences.

In this chapter, we first outline a dynamic view on knowledge frames and networks, by connecting conceptual developments on knowledge creation, interactive framing, ways of knowing and configuration theory. Second, we identify key dimensions of frame diversity in the climate change debate, on the basis of a secondary analysis of a range of peer-reviewed empirical studies. Then, in our discussion, we elaborate on the connective capacity needed for bridging knowledge frames and networks and the potential of boundary organizations, objects and experiences.

This is the reference:

Dewulf, A., Brugnach, M., Termeer, C. & Ingram, H. (2013). Bridging knowledge frames and networks in climate and water governance. In: J. Edelenbos, N. Bressers & P. Scholten (Eds). Water governance as connective capacity, pp 229-247. Ashgate.

The book is available at Amazon and also as a PDF ebook