9c. Public Participation and the Role of Stakeholders

Track Chairs

  • Alex Franklin, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, UK.
    ac0569@coventry.ac.uk
  • Wanxin Li, School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong,  Hong Kong.
    wanxin.li@cityu.edu.hk
  • Agnes Zolyomi, Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, UK.
    ac8659@coventry.ac.uk

Goals and Objectives and areas of the Track

Focusing in particular on multi-stakeholder and community-led forms of resourceful and resilient environmental practice, the goal of this track is to open up discussion and advance understanding of how to nurture the inherent potential of all local citizens to participate in the sustainable management of natural resources.

Restrictions in access to, exclusion from, or depletion of local resources, and retained (or increasing) problems of energy poverty, environmental injustice and food insecurity, are just some of the consequences of the unsustainable patterns of living, production and consumption provoked by processes of globalization and uneven development. The addition of climate change brings further complexity, and also further vulnerability to this picture. In the face of such immense challenges, collaborative forms of stakeholder engagement and public participation – as highlighted through SDG-17 – are critical to the task of achieving a more sustainable future. 

A risk when establishing and sustaining a positive cycle of action is empowering the already empowered whilst further disempowering the already disempowered. In this track call, resilience is thus conceptualized as constituting the capacity of a stakeholder group to i) adopt just, inclusive and sustainable approaches to managing the local resource base; ii) respond to, learn from and move forwards in situations of crisis and high vulnerability; and iii) embed/ normalize practices of resourcefulness into everyday life. By becoming more resourceful, socially and economically as well as environmentally, this enables communities and stakeholder groups to manage, overcome and avert local environmental and ecological harms without need for, or reliance on, intrusive forms of external intervention. What characterizes local resourcefulness, however, is itself a question which remains open to debate.

Accordingly, we invite contributions which, collectively, allow us to critically explore the range of ways in which stakeholder groups seek to enhance the resilience and resourcefulness of particular places, practices, environments or communities. This includes, for example, research relating to the production, consumption, management and/ or conservation of a full range of environmental resources (e.g. food, water, energy, land, minerals), ecosystem services, or to the broader and more fundamental intrinsic value of nature, in either urban, peri-urban or rural settings.     

Key interlocking themes and concepts which we would especially welcome engagement with by contributors to this track include (but are not restricted to): resourcefulness, resilience, coupled social-ecological systems, collaborative practice, sustainable place-making and environmental action. In exploring the various and interdependent layers of socio-cultural, economic and environmental value, meaning and identity which stimulate and/ or are nourished by stakeholder engagement in environmental action, we also encourage contributions which endorse creative methodologies, acknowledge the role of non-human animates, give emphasis to the emotional and affective dimensions of collaborative practice, and/ or which endorse a transdisciplinary approach to research inquiry.

Length and content of the proposed abstract to the track

Each proposed abstract (in connection to an area pointed out above) of between 300 and 500 words (including all aspects),

  1. shall be best organized (without headlines) along usual structures (e.g. intro/method/findings or results/ discussion/conclusions)
  2. does not need to, but can include references
  3. shall provide in a final section
    a. to which SDG(s) and SDG-target(s) their proposed abstract especially relate to (e.g. “SDG+Target: 14.1.”).
    b. a brief indication how the proposed contribution relates to the topic of the Conference (“ACCELERATING PROGRESS TOWARDS SDG’s IN TIMES OF CRISIS”).

Abstracts which do not outline points 3.a.) AND 3.b.) might not be given special consideration in the selection for potential publications and might be considered less relevant in the Review.

Potential publication channels

  1. The Journal (name, website, impact factor if any, if possible indexed where)

    Journal of Environmental Management (envisaged) will be considered for publication of a special issue resulted from this panel. The journal is SCI indexed with an impact factor of 5.647 in 2019.

    Frontiers in Sustainable Cities (open access, inquired/confirmed) has contacted Wanxin Li for working out a special issue with the journal. Although it is not yet indexed in SCI or SSCI, if 10 or more articles are included in this special issue, the publisher will also make the special issue an edited book. Of course, because it is an open-access journal, publication fee will have to be paid by the authors.

  2. Edited Book series (name of the series, publisher, website, if possible indexed where)

    Frontiers in Sustainable Cities (open access, inquired/confirmed) has contacted Wanxin Li for working out a special issue with the journal. Although it is not yet indexed in SCI or SSCI, if 10 or more articles are included in this special issue, the publisher will also make the special issue an edited book. Of course, because it is an open-access journal, publication fee will have to be paid by the authors.

  3. Conference proceedings with own ISBN number (each abstract and – later – full paper)

Submission

Please submit your abstract by visiting the abstract submission system (you will be required to setup an account first) at

https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/login?redirect=/stages/2332/submitter

 

Extended deadline for abstracts: 15 February 2021

PLEASE ALSO CONSIDER A PARTICIPATION IN OUR PHD-WORKSHOP! https://2021.isdrsconferences.org/phd-workshop/