Challenging old models of knowledge and learning: new perspectives for participation in environmental management and planning.

Abstract

What one 'knows' is relative to and affected by one's values, assumptions and perspectives; in addition, learning and teaching occur in a social and cultural context. These tenets underpin the idea of relational or contextual knowledge, and challenge the conventional view of 'received knowledge' which involves deference to authority and reliance on 'expertise', a belief in knowledge (especially science) as a set of truths, and a view of education as authoritative explanation of these truths. Drawing on theoretical and conceptual work on ways of knowing and the nature of participation in environment and resource management, this paper explores notions of participation, knowledge and knowledge generation (including research), and expertise. Insights from a study of citizen perspectives on the Walkerton tragedy are used to highlight our shifting understanding of these ideas.

Ce que l'on << sait >> depend de nos valeurs, suppositions et perspectives. De plus, l'apprentissage et l'enseignement se font dans un contexte culturel et social. Cela etaye l'idee d'une connaissance relationnelle ou contextuelle, et remet en cause le point de vue habituel sur la connaissance comme etant une chose que l'on << recoit >> et qui implique une deference pour l'autorite, une confiance aux << experts >>, une croyance dans la connaissance (en particulier scientifique) en tant qu'ensemble de verites, et la perception de l'education comme explication faisant autorite de ces verites. S'inspirant de travaux theoriques et conceptuels sur les modes de connaissances et sur la nature de la participation a la gestion de l'environnement et des ressources, cet article explore les notions de participation, de connaissance et de production de la connaissance (y compris la recherche), et d'expertise. Des elements d'une etude sur le point de vue des citoyens sur la tragedie de Walkerton sont utilises pour mettre en lumiere les modification de notre comprehension de ces idees.

Key words:

Participation, knowledge, ways of knowing, environmental management, Walkerton

Introduction

Not long ago, a planning consultant friend of mine was sharing his reflections on an "open house" he had recently facilitated in a nearby small town. The public forum had been organized to provide community members with an opportunity to review a newly designed pedestrian-oriented trail system plan for the community. A believer in the necessity for "citizen input" into public planning, he lamented the perceptions of current processes and forums, such as the one he had just been involved in, to obtain this input.

The decision makers, the politicians, held up the feedback

they received, and said one of two things: either, 'see, their

(the public's) ideas agree with ours', or 'see, they really

don't understand what's going on ... look at their ludicrous

suggestions'; in either case, the politicians concluded 'so,

why even have the open house? The citizens themselves

also questioned their own participation, asking 'why are you

(the Planner) even consulting us, you went to school for

this, you're the expert' or 'this is all just P.R., it doesn't

matter what we say, the decisions are already made'.

What can I do?

What are we as planners and managers, as academics, and as ordinary citizens to think of these varied and often ambivalent perspectives on the idea and practice of "public participation"? What sense can we make of the oft heard calls to "include local knowledge," to "share in decision making" or to "build consensus" and "collaborate"--especially when these objectives are held in high esteem as fundamental principles of the "new" management and planning paradigm?

Citizen participation, community involvement, local knowledge, collaboration and shared decision-making processes are now prominent themes in both public and academic discussion, part of the democratization of hitherto authoritarian processes (Bates 1994; Cortner 1996; McAvoy 1998; Banks and Mangan 1999; Pierce and Dale 1999; Brick et al 2001). Increased participation is upheld as democracy in action, a goal in and of itself. In addition, participation is seen to play a role in producing more effective, responsive and informed policy on a variety of matters, and has been "applied" across a variety of realms ranging from the creation of social policy, to community and economic development, to sustainability, environmental and resource planning, management and problem solving. It is therefore seen also as a means to substantive ends. Finally, participation is deemed to play an important psychological and educational role in the development of individuals and community.

Skeptics and those of the cynical bent see these conceptual shifts, enacted through involvement and consultation, as a cop-out by political decision-makers shirking their electoral duties in light of the increasingly divergent interests of their constituents, and as attempts by planners and managers to merely appease the ever more vocal "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) factions and fringe radicals. Dismissive critiques such as these, however, can too easily derail our necessary efforts to maintain the shift towards participatory planning and management, so I intend not to discuss these further, only acknowledge their existence. I plan to undertake a more encouraging discussion with the aim of providing constructive critique.

My aim in this paper is not to provide answers to any of the questions I have raised thus far. Rather, I hope to reflect further on the account this paper opened with, and other experiences and events that, I believe, highlight the challenges of the new models and principles for planning and management, and that encourage us to continue to pose questions, especially at the nexus of our understandings of participation, knowledge, and expertise. I emphasize too, that I am not proposing we abandon existing, dominant expert-as-vessel-of-legitimate-knowledge and knowledge-as-facts standpoints; rather I contend that we augment these partial views with richer perspectives, since I do not wish to replace one monolithic way of knowing with another. In short, we need to accept a broad understanding of knowledge and knowledge generation and to reflect this understanding in the practical domain of participatory planning and management, and to continue to debate and critique in the academic realm. We need to recognize and acknowledge the co-existence of multiple, contextual knowledges, and the individual and collective processes that lead to these. And, we need to appreciate the temporal and contingent nature, the situational aspects, of expertise. All of this builds on the current and growing dialogue in the literature that links knowledge, power/expertise and legitimacy (cf. Foucault 1977, 1984), but that is only modestly dealt with in environmental management and planning as part of the emerging paradigmatic direction.

When we invite people to participate publicly in planning and management in their neighbourhoods, cities and rural areas, to 'share their local knowledge' in order to help solve local environmental problems or shed light on a longstanding resource issue, what do we actually mean? Is the intention anything more than to use an alternate method of data collection to provide additional information? What does sharing local knowledge mean to the people who participate in these processes? Do they think it is just "PR," or a "cop out" on the part of presumed experts, as suggested in the anecdote that introduced this paper? And, what does this shift reveal about our perspectives on the nature of knowledge, learning, and truth and what are the implications for how we understand and use these concepts? We don't ordinarily ponder these questions, but as Belenky et al note, we need to.

We do not think of the ordinary person as preoccupied with

such difficult and profound questions as: what is truth?

What is authority? To whom do I listen? What counts for

me as evidence? How do I know what I know? Yet, to ask

ourselves these questions and to reflect on our answers is

more than an intellectual exercise, for our basic

assumptions about the nature of truth and reality and the

origins of knowledge shape the way we see the world and

ourselves as participants in it. They affect our definitions of

ourselves, the way we interact with others, our public and

private personae, our sense of control over life events, our

views of teaching and learning and our conceptions of

morality (Belenky et al 1997: 3).

Alternatives to conventional understandings of knowledge, of knowledge generation and legitimization, and of teaching and learning (education) are implicit in the alternatives to conventional top-down, control-oriented environmental management regimes. As alternatives to conventional environmental management, scholars and practitioners have for some time now, discussed paradigms such as "civil society" (Massam and Dickinson 1999), "civic environmentalism" (John 1994), "participatory and action research" (Banks and Mangan 1999; Fischer 2000), "collaborative" problem-solving (Brick et al 2001), and "human dimensions" of natural resource management (Ewert 1996). All of these are seen as part of the shift underway towards a more holistic environmental and resource management, one which links sustainability and governance questions more broadly, and emphasizes a strategy of coping, rather than control (Bavington 2002). Part of making these alternate understandings explicit, is to problematize embedded concepts, in short, to revisit our understanding of what knowledge and learning are.

Perspectives on knowledge and knowing

For Western philosophers, knowledge has involved the search for truth. Scholars and thinkers have written on this subject for centuries, and further discussion of this is beyond the scope of this paper. Embedded in the Western worldview and its historical context, knowledge in environmental protection and resource management has referred almost exclusively to scientific knowledge--the accumulated body of observations, facts, and theories that help us understand the physical world. Akin to the ideas introduced by Hudson (2002) in his discussion of management, it is less so the idea of knowledge as a "transhistorical concept," than it is the historically specific form of knowledge, that can be thought of as problematic. In this way, I wish to direct attention to understanding and to opening up the multiple possibilities for knowledge and knowledge generation, rather than seeking alternatives to or replacements for the concept of knowledge itself.

Emerging shifts in our understanding of knowledge reflect the idea that "the search for truth is giving way to an effort to identify and reduce areas of ignorance" (Wagner 1993, ix). Ignorance (lack of knowledge) and especially uncertainty (lack of knowability) have recently entered environmental management discourse (cf. Bryant and Wilson 1998; Mitchell 2001) as characteristics of environmental management situations, which form the context in which we manage. Other papers in this volume highlight this shifting understanding and the implications and potential practices for moving beyond managerial ecology (see Berkes, Blakney, Davidson-Hunt, Kendrick, McCarthy, this volume).

The conventional managerial ecology paradigm of environmental management is usually characterized as state-centred, top-down (authoritarian), control-oriented, expert driven and technocratic (e.g. Cortner and Moote 1994; Bryant and Wilson 1998). Indeed, the papers in the preceding companion issue of Environments provide provocative critique and contestation of this dominant paradigm, setting the stage for consideration of alternate approaches (Bavington and Slocombe 2002). As citizens, we rely on the authority of the state to make resource use and development decisions and to formulate environmental protection policy. The state does so by "applying" the knowledge of scientific and technical experts, to make informed, rational decisions (or so it tells us). Legitimate knowledge is cast as a set of verifiable facts or the truth, with scientific inquiry as the most objective, and hence "best," mode of acquiring this knowledge. Unfortunately, as a corollary of this, other types of knowledge and ways of knowing are deemed less valid and are rejected (implicitly and unquestioningly), in environmental management processes, including those espousing "citizen" or "public" participation. Qualitative methods and approaches, and subjective stances, in a realm of practice and research that privileges the superiority of objective science, are invalidated. Indeed, knowledge generation using non-dominant alternatives is deemed less legitimate than the dominant perspectives of scientific and judicial fact finding, and is more easily dismissed. Without shifting our understanding of knowledge in the context of participatory methods, we end up merely adding more data collection methods to obtain additional information; we miss out on the opportunities to achieve the richer outcomes of such processes and value from the processes themselves.

One goal of participation in the dominant paradigm is the model of education underpinning planning activities, whereby the public becomes informed about state decisions, and the public informs the state about their "views." Education is understood as a one-way process of information transmission, whereby experts impart their (legitimate) knowledge to citizens. Education is thus an authoritative explanation of the truth. The flow of "information"--the local knowledge, perceptions, and opinions of citizens, the non-experts--back to the planners, managers and political decision makers is not seen to be education. It is regarded as merely "input" or "feedback," or even ignored, especially if it involves emotion, attachment and caring. That we even label and differentiate citizen understanding and non-expert science as "local" or "traditional" knowledge, it seems to me, maintains and perpetuates its separation from what our dominant culture would consider to be "real" knowledge. (1) The aim of current education in participation is to educate citizens (by transmitting "real" knowledge) to enable them to make "informed" (rational) decisions and avoid emotional NIMBYism.

Our conventional understanding of knowledge is thus as received knowledge. This view is characterized by a belief in knowledge as a set of truths and in research (especially scientific) as a quest for truths, by a view of education (the teaching and learning process) as authoritative explanation of these truths, and by deference to authority and reliance on professional expertise for decision-making. Managerial ecology, as the current dominant paradigm for environmental management, parallels and indeed reinforces, this notion of received knowledge. In current environmental management regimes, political decision makers defer (at least daily, operational decision-making) to managers. Learning from the knowledge gained through scientific research and review of scientific findings (truth and facts), their expertise allows them to control, with assumed certainty, the allocation of resources, and to provide credible recommendations for and solutions to environmental problems, again with some presumed certainty.

What we know, however, can also be understood as relative to and affected by individually-held and shared values, assumptions and perspectives. In addition, education and knowledge generation (learning and teaching) occur in social and cultural contexts. These two tenets underpin the idea of relational or contextual knowledge, which challenges the conventional view of received knowledge. Situated and contingent, the idea of relational knowledge and the process of knowledge generation provides a more comprehensive, yet nuanced, basis for considering participation (and related themes) in environmental management.

New knowledge for new management

Belenky and her colleagues (1997) provide additional insight into the range of categories of knowledge; they present a framework or typology of five epistemological kinds of knowing, as a way to conceptualize perspectives on truth, knowledge and authority. The framework, the authors make clear, is not meant to be exhaustive or universal, and reflects a gendered basis of knowledge and knowing, since the project involved interviews with women only. (2) The authors point out that ways of knowing and self concepts are intertwined; that is, knowledge and knowledge generation, and identity are linked. While Belenky et al (1997) discuss ways of knowing and identity in the context of the individual, one could reasonably assume that shared identity and knowledge generation at societal and cultural levels, could also be considered within this framework.

The framework highlights the multiplicity of knowledge, not in a developmental sense (i.e. our knowledge does not necessarily progress from one 'stage' of knowledge to the next), or normatively (i.e. no guidance for encouraging certain types of knowledge over others). Indeed, the various ways of knowing may co-exist simultaneously in each person. While the framework explicates individual modes of knowing, far from the context of environmental management, I believe that we can draw out important implications for participatory knowledge generation for environmental management, especially given an understanding of knowledge as socially constructed. The framework is introduced here only as a starting point for further discussion.

Silence: This knowledge represents a kind of extreme, for it is actually a position of "no voice." It serves, according to Belenky et al (1997: 30) "as an anchoring point in this epistemological scheme," representing the salience of absence of voice in a small sub-group of their participants, and the noticeable lack of awareness of the power of language and knowledge. A learner is passive, reactive and dependent on external authority. The expert/teacher is authoritarian and not only powerful, but overpowering.

Received knowledge: Knowledge is that which external authorities and experts give. The authorities and experts "know" and (selectively) share information with non-experts. Knowledge is concrete, and therefore easily documented and reproducible. It is dualistic--right or wrong, good or bad, true or false--and therefore, indisputable (there is only one 'right' answer). Learning is by listening and thereby requires both recipients of and generators of knowledge. Learners see themselves as capable of receiving, even reproducing, knowledge from the external authorities, but don't recognize they are capable of creating knowledge.

Subjective knowledge: In this perspective, truth and knowledge are conceived of as personally experienced and subjectively known or intuited. The dualistic nature of knowledge may be maintained, but the locus of authority, and hence "expertise," shifts from external only to internal as well, and therefore signals a move from passive reception to basic action and the development of voice. The knower is not reliant on powerful authorities for truth and knowledge--knowledge is grounded in first hand experience (Belenky et al. 1997, 60). In a society that emphasizes rationality and science, there are costs with a subjectivist epistemology--this form of knowing is derided as myth and "old wives tales," or at best, "mere common sense."

The idea of subjective knowing can be considered at the cultural level as well. In the literature, subjectivist knowledge is often discussed as part of local knowledge systems, the study of which have been associated primarily with non-Western, indigenous cultures where subjective knowing, intuitive processes, and experiential knowledge generation are held in greater esteem, indeed are knowing (Patel 1996). Where local cultures have been subordinated by dominant (usually Western, Euro-centric), colonial culture, which emphasizes rationalism and scientific thought, so too has the local accumulated knowledge, in historical but also present times (Berlin 1992; Irwin 1995).

Procedural (reasoned) knowledge: Reason and critical thought are not exclusive to scientific knowledge generation; in procedural knowledge, the inner authority is active and critical. In this form of knowledge, a distinction is drawn between opinions, intuitions, feelings and reasoned knowledge. Authorities, while knowledgeable, are not the dominant source of knowledge; careful observation and analysis, and the application of reasoning, on the part of the knower also results in knowledge. There is recognition of the possibility of different perspectives--of different and equally correct ways of looking at problems.

Constructed (relational) knowledge: This perspective views knowledge as entirely contextual, and learners are knowers, constructing knowledge, both subjectively and objectively (procedurally), with both equally valued. As Belenky et al (1997: 134) note, this transformation involves "the weaving together of strands of rational and emotive thought, and of integrating objective and subjective knowing." The knower is an intimate part of the known, and more importantly, recognizes that he or she is "situated." Either--or thinking is not present; answers depend on the context in which questions are asked, and actions depend upon the context in which they are needed.

I came to further understand knowledge and knowledge generation during a recent research project in which I studied a community's sense of place in light of a recent environmental contamination (Dakin 2002). Part of the study involved a set of in-depth, semi-structured interviews ranging from two to four hours in duration, with 24 citizens of Walkerton, Ontario, carried out mainly in 2001. The following instances are based on my own reflections on both the process and content of these interviews, which explored participants' feelings about, attitudes toward and attachments to their community, following the contamination of their water supply in May 2000. These interviews often evolved, unintentionally, into discussions, into narrative "story-telling," and began to take on a purpose beyond data collection for an academic study of sense of place and place attachment.

The people of Walkerton were, for the most part, very willing to engage in these discussions, excited by the opportunity to share their views, and even appeared grateful for the chance to do so. This struck me immediately as significant and compelling, primarily because it was very much at odds with warnings from others (mostly other academic researchers) about "the ethics" of asking questions of traumatized people--after all, they had been "hounded" by the media for a long time during the crisis. But, the interview process, in my view, was successful on several accounts, and upon reflection, this should not have been surprising.

It was not that the participants provided any new information about the enteric bacteriological processes at work in their own gastrointestinal systems during that fateful May 2000--in fact, they were still searching for more "information" themselves. It was not that they had any more detailed or particularly insightful perspectives on the local and provincial politics that contributed to what had happened to them--indeed they were still grappling with the complex, taken-for-granted acceptance of and apparently misguided belief in the governance of their community and province. The research process I was engaging them in was different from the question-answer episodes they had earlier experienced. As one participant noted: "Until now, no one asked us to tell our stories, to say how we feel or have changed, only asked us who to blame ..."

What was so compelling for me as a researcher and what they did seem to do in the interview process, was to reveal their very personal stories, feelings and emotions, their fears and lingering questions surrounding the contamination of their water supply--their "environmental life-blood" according to one person--with that deadly strain of e-coli. In so doing, they seemed to be working through the events and their memories of them, trying to make sense of and understand what had happened; indeed, they were participating in constructing knowledge about this major event in their lives, based on their own and shared experiences, and on information from others. As such, the process was generative. Participants were trying to integrate rationally-derived knowledge, received knowledge, and their own subjective knowledge; seemingly engaging in Belenky et al's fifth 'type' of knowledge--relational knowledge (Belenky et al, 1997). More than just the means to an end, more than a method for me to collect data, this generative process was transformative for the participants--admittedly "refreshing" to some, and almost "therapeutic" to others. Conceiving of an interview process for research purposes as either "participation" or "healing" is not generally accepted. In my view, it should be.

While it is not generally accepted, at least not in our dominant culture, such "participation-as-healing" is akin to First Nation's use of the "healing circle" to assist victims, communities and even the "accused" themselves, recover after traumatic experiences, societal transgressions, or criminal offences. A shared, communal effort to support and reintegrate the offender into the community, rather than an adversarial procedure to find guilt and expel or punish, the "healing circle" is as much a therapeutic intervention as it is a judicial process (Monture-Okanee 1995; Grogan 1999).

Participation: Beyond the Ladder

Fischer (2000) has suggested that participation can be defined as 1) deliberation on issues affecting one's own life, and 2) facilitation of learning--a process of challenging learners with ways of interpreting their experience and presenting them with "ideas and behaviours that cause them to examine critically their values, ways of acting and the assumptions by which they live." (Fischer 2000: 185). Participation as either deliberation or learning opens up the decision process not only to a range of new perspectives and the additional information and understanding they provide, but also to "another kind of rationality" (Fischer 2000: 148). This post-positivist rationality involves understanding of the social and cultural dimensions of problems, not only their technical and scientific aspects. Unfortunately, such rationality is often dismissed as a NIMBY reaction because of the powerful role techno-experts play in our culture (Fischer 2000). While attention to power in public participation has been discussed for some time (e.g. Arnstein 1969), the specifics of power sharing in relation to knowledge have received less attention. It requires a significant divestment of power--from current 'experts' and from political authorities, most notably--to accept sociocultural knowledge as legitimate, involving the holders of such knowledge (citizens) in decision making throughout management and planning processes, and integrating such knowledge on equal footing with more prestigious techno-scientific knowledge. It also implies empowerment of previously marginalized voices, which itself necessitates capacity building and the requisite resource investments to do so.

One of the most significant problems in the Walkerton Tragedy that emerged through my research was the debilitating impact of the deference to authority inherent in our culture. A repeated theme in numerous citizen stories was the disappointment, anger and sense of betrayal felt when the trust placed in experts in their community was violated. The (supposed) experts in charge of the community water system knew there was inadequate chlorine being added to the water but continued to operate the system; other experts knew there were high bacteria counts in the town's water. Some experts even knew both of these things, yet apparently "didn't think there was a problem worthy of notifying us" (the community members) by issuing a boil water order. Further, community members questioned their trust in medical experts, recalling that when they had been sick in the past with similar gastrointestinal symptoms, and they suggested potential longer standing problems with the community water supply, their concerns were regularly and repeatedly dismissed. According to one Walkerton citizen: "it was 'all in our heads' or was 'stress', we were told." This highlights both our expectations of receiving (correct) knowledge from experts, and the privileged and powerful role of experts and their knowledge in our society. It also highlights our growing ambivalence toward this role--we are beginning to question authority and the power we have invested in such expertise.

According to the Canadian Oxford dictionary, knowledge is equated with 'expertise'--an expert is someone with extensive knowledge on a subject or knowledge of a specialized field. In everyday language, it is just as often equated with information. Fischer (2000: 10-12) notes that the ideas of expert and knowledge are taking on central importance in the latest variant of post-industrial society--the "information" society in which the "codification and use of knowledge become fundamental organization principles of society." The logic of modern science continues to be one of the driving forces of this society, as indeed it was of the industrial age.

Any integration of ways of knowing, and more importantly, an acceptance of the legitimacy of different ways of knowing, is, I believe, central to enacting our new models of environmental and resource management. Fischer (2000: 148) notes, that the key question which is required is how we might "integrate sociocultural rationality with the technical perspectives of experts," which remains problematic, given the continued privileging of science and technological information in our post-industrial knowledge society that has also been characterized a "risk society" (Beck 1992). The "environment" and its associated problems, including risk, remain an area generally thought of as requiring predominantly technical and scientific answers. The question remains: can we expect that citizens will be able to effectively participate to inform and to help make the decisions facing contemporary policy makers in a complex society full of uncertainty?

As an example, the integration of local, subjective knowledge in decision making is not happening readily, and in Alberta, quite the opposite seems to be underway. Recent revisions to the approval process for Confined Feeding Operations--also called Intensive Livestock Operations and a burgeoning multi-billion dollar industry in the province--further privilege the technical perspectives informing decisions, and further marginalize sociocultural rationality. The approval of proposed new operations or expansions to existing ones in the province previously rested with local municipalities. This was generally viewed as satisfactory, since those who would be most affected by the negative externalities (contaminated air and water, for example) could participate in the decisions (although not share the making of decisions). Since 2002, however, approval decisions have been moved "up" to the provincial level, and are now part of the approval process via the Natural Resources Conservation Board (NRCB), the quasi-judicial and administrative agency mandated to make decisions on proposed (non-energy) resource developments. The key reason offered for this move toward top-down decision making is that "decisions rely on technical information" and must be protected from overly emotional reactions on the part of local community members (NRCB, n.d). The health and other impacts that local community members and neighbours to the proposed operations are concerned about are dismissed as overly emotional NIMBY reactions to sound proposals for needed economic development. Yet, given the growing epidemiological evidence of health issues from waterborne enteric bacteria--local community members, indeed, have reason to fear. Despite this, I do believe there is some hope.

There is hope in the recent shifts apparent in the processes we use to reflect on or inquire into crises and widespread problems, such as the Walkerton Inquiry. While the Inquiry could be deemed a success in terms of the immediate changes and subsequent benefits to the people of Walkerton regarding their local water supply--as well as to other communities through the province-wide recommendations--I want to highlight one more important implication. What impressed and relieved many people about the Inquiry process was not so much the high quality of scientific information or the digging up of the 'roots' of the water crises and the potential for equally devastating events elsewhere (although these were deemed important)--it was the context of the Inquiry itself. The fact that Justice O'Conner insisted the Inquiry be held in Walkerton in order to be accessible to the community, rather than in Toronto, where he and the other officials would have had greater access to the resources they needed during the Inquiry, did not go unnoticed by the people of Walkerton. Further, their respect for the man leading the process and the responsibility entrusted in him to be fair and thorough was enhanced by his choice to rent a home and live in the town. "He became one of us," one citizen observed--and in contrast to the stigmatization by potential visitors and ostracization by neighbouring communities, "he didn't treat us like lepers." These ordinary actions and civil behaviour on the part of the commissioner went further to engender a sense of participation, and even ownership, in the process than a more official (and potentially officious) invitation to participate at a more distant location ever could have. (3)

Academics, planners and managers are beginning to consider a new typology of participants in public forums to inform decision-making. Slowly, the role of the expert seems to be undergoing a transformation. Planners are increasingly portrayed, and indeed actually serve, as "facilitators" (a role to which my opening anecdote alludes). The "citizen expert" and the "professional expert" are now distinguishable and equally relevant, according to Fischer (2000), reflecting perhaps recognition of the different types of knowledge outlined by Belenky et al (1997). Fischer notes that in local environmental associations and grassroot efforts, one or more "citizen experts" emerges; indeed, a movement is coalescing around the organized development of 'expertise' in some areas, such as pesticides and hazardous waste. In addition, one typically finds present in such struggles a "professional expert" who assists the community, usually through process facilitation, advocacy or research, in answering its own questions on its own terms.

Broader processes are emerging that further indicate there is some change afoot. New initiatives and research, often citizen created and led, such as popular epidemiology (Brown 1990), participatory resource mapping (Fischer 2000), collaborative conservation (Brick et al 2001) and community action-research (Banks and Mangan 1999) highlight what some would call a new social movement. Legitimization of local knowledge and experience and empowerment of local people who take on roles as researchers and experts in their communities, through processes such as appreciative inquiry and community-based planning are also occurring (Ashford and Patkar 2001; Rifkin and Pridmore 2001). In addition, governments are beginning to recognize indigenous peoples' claims to territory and resources, and acknowledging their rights and traditional systems of management, through co-management agreements (Hawkes 1996).

Any new form of more participatory engagement in management and problem solving requires capabilities that are not present in conventional authoritarian, hierarchical, command-and-control organizations and institutions, including those for environmental and resource management. Senge (1994) suggests the idea of learning organizations that are focused first and foremost on capacity building for learning and participating. Making organizations into learning organizations represents a fundamental shift towards a holistic perspective, akin to the systems thinking put forward as a key aspect of our move beyond managerial ecology. Attention to capacity building at a variety of levels is thus imperative.

Participation viewed as a generative and potentially transformative process for citizens (and experts)--and not just as a means or method by which to collect additional information or to involve people as an end itself--is an emerging direction in environmental management. It will become especially significant if the knowledge generated is viewed as equally valuable as scientific knowledge. Likely outcomes include decreased reliance on only objective, external truth; more reflective processes; and forms of knowledge that are sufficient for, indeed geared towards, practical purposes. As examples of such changes, the role of experience and the use of story telling and narratives in environmental management have been suggested by others, usually as part of ascertaining local environmental history. Bowerbank (1997: 32) for example, suggests the use of "personal and interested" knowledge, to "not merely react to particular crises, but develop instead an ongoing process to allow people to explicitly cultivate a collective sense of place and participation in environmental decision making."

In this paper, I have questioned and critiqued the conceptions and understandings of participation, knowledge and expertise in the current paradigm of managerial ecology. Through discussion of particular events and anecdotal examples drawn from my own experience and from observations of others involved in "public processes," I hope to have demonstrated that an alternative kind of knowledge generation exists. This form of knowledge--subjective data, opinions and experiences in particular places--has typically been marginalized in the realms of public planning and environmental management. By describing these alternative types of knowledge, I hope to challenge the reader to accept as legitimate and valid, forms of knowledge that are not conventionally held in high regard by planners, managers and academics committed to managerial ecology.

(1) The historic contexts of and conceptualizations of local (traditional) and scientific (modern) knowledge have been teased out and contested in the vast literature in this area; for insightful reading see Agrawal 1995, Brush and Stabinsky 1996, Bernal 1969).

(2) Without over-emphasizing the importance of gender, but recognizing the dominance of patriarchy, it should be noted that earlier work which is held up as definitive with respect to human knowing (e.g. Perry 1970), was based on interviews with only men.

(3) Consideration of the actions of an inquiry commissioner in relation to the communities he/she interacts with, as integral to the 'success' of public process, is not new. Indeed a key implication of the Berger Inquiry in the 1970s has been attention to accessibility of communities to such processes (Berger 1977).

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Susan Dakin is an Assistant Professor in Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta. Her research interests include environmental contamination and risk, and sense of place; qualitative methodology in geography and environmental management; and landscape studies. She can be reached at the University of Lethbridge, Geography Department, 4401 University Drive W, Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4; susan.dakin@uleth.ca.