Boundary Work and the Complexity of Natural Resources Management

By P. Mollinga. 2010

181 citations recorded by the source corpus.

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses how research on natural resources management systems can address the complexity of such systems. Three different types of complexity are identifi ed: ontological, societal, and analytical. Signifi cant ideas for “dealing with complexity” are extracted from U.S., Swiss, and U.K. literature on inter- and transdisciplinary research. Based on this, the “boundary work” framework is presented to systematically think through complexity chal-lenges. The framework suggests that inter- and transdisciplinary research on natural research management requires three types of work: (i) the development of suitable boundary concepts that allow thinking of the multidimensionality of NRM issues; (ii) the confi guration of adequate boundary objects as devices and methods that allow acting in situations of incomplete knowl-edge, nonlinearity, and divergent interests; and (iii) the shaping of conducive boundary settings in which these concepts, devices, and methods can be fruitfully developed and effectively put to work. The ideas presented are illustrated with an example of a research program on sustain-able land and water management in Uzbekistan. The concluding section highlights three issues important for increasing the effectiveness of inter- and transdisciplinary research on natural resources management.Dep. of Political and Cultural Change, ZEF (Center for Development Research), Walter Flex Str. 3, 53113 Bonn, Germany. Received 6 Oct. 2009. *Corresponding author (pmollinga@uni-bonn.de).

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Management Science and Operations Research, Ocean Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2bfdded5ad1edd3ff6183c08d9ea190438b920c6

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Pieter W. G. Bots
2. Jochen Hinkel
3. Maja Schlüter

In Management Science and Operations Research

1. Pieter W. G. Bots
2. Jochen Hinkel
3. Maja Schlüter
4. Stefan Partelow

In Ocean Engineering

1. Pieter W. G. Bots
2. Jochen Hinkel
3. Maja Schlüter

Citations in the corpus

• Enhancing the Ostrom social-ecological system framework through formalization (2014, background): “A lower degree of formalization also makes the framework more accessible for newcomers, and its concepts may better serve as boundary concepts for facilitating interdisciplinary dialog (Mollinga 2010).”