REPORT: Contested Knowledges of the Commons in Southeast Asia Research Progress report - Vignettes from the Field (CRISEA Working Paper 2)

Publication date:
March 2020

Publication:
Contested Knowledges of the Commons in Southeast Asia Research Progress report - Vignettes from the Field

Edited and compiled:
Carl Middleton

Authors:
Monika Arnez, Sally Beckenham, David Chu, Robert A. Farnan, Tomasz Kamiński, Carl Middleton, Edyta Roszko, Thianchai Surimas, Amnuayvit Thitibordin, Andrea Valente, Michał Zaręba

Download the report here.

Historically until the present day, wide-ranging forms, scopes, intensities and durations of resource politics have shaped the concept and practice of development across Southeast Asia. In this report, we present eight vignettes that offer a sample of some of the varying characteristics of these resource politics and their implications for competition over resources and the commons, and social justice. The vignettes are the interim products of multidisciplinary research – and in one case transdisciplinary research - that is ongoing by team members of ‘Work Package 1 on the Environment’ of the EU-funded project Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia (CRISEA).[1] 

In our first Working Paper, published in March 2019, we detailed our Work Package’s theoretical framework.[2] The core of the shared conceptual approach of our research is an examination of the co-production of ecological knowledge and ecological governance, viewed across the global, national and local scales. Here we draw upon the foundational work of Sheila Jasanoff (2004)[3], and as applied in Southeast Asia more recently by Gururani and Vandergeest (2014)[4] amongst others, to understand the remaking of nature-society relations in Southeast Asia. In short, as stated by Jasanoff (2004:2) “… co-production is shorthand for the proposition that the ways in which we know and represent the world (both nature and society) are inseparable from the ways in which we choose to live in it”. The co-production of natural and social orders are thus mediated by the production, circulation, integration and dissemination of knowledge, which itself must be contextualized to historical context, power relations, and culture.

The purpose of this Working Paper is to offer empirically grounded case studies of resource politics in practice in the region, as a work-in-progress. Overall, the research projects address three overarching themes: Transition into a low-carbon economy (Kamiński); Sea (Arnez; Roszko); and Rivers (Beckenham and Farnan; Chu; Middleton and Surimas; Thitibordin; Zaręba). We seek to analyze these cases through our project’s conceptual lens to generate both academic insight and policy-relevant recommendations, which will be the subject of forthcoming publications.

Please contact Dr. Carl Middleton for more information.

Citation: Arnez, M., Beckenham, S., Chu, D., Farnan, R.A., Kamiński, T., Middleton, C., Roszko, E., Surimas, T., Valente, A., and Zaręba, M. (2020) The Environment - Contested Knowledge of the Commons in Southeast Asia (CRISEA Working Paper 2). Research Progress report - Vignettes from the Field (CRISEA) Working Paper No. 2 (March 2020).

This report is part of our project The Contested Meanings of the Mekong River in Northern Thailand. You can visit the project page here.

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[1] See http://crisea.eu/ for further details

[2] Kamiński, T., Arnez, M., Middleton, C., Beckenham, S., Farnan, R.A., Chu, D., Roszko, E., Thitibordin, A., Valente, A., and Zaręba, M. (2019) The Environment - Contested Knowledge of the Commons in Southeast Asia (CRISEA Working Paper 1). Competing Regional Integrations in Southeast Asia (CRISEA) Working Paper No. 1 (March 2019).

[3] Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and Social Order. London: Routledge

[4] Gururani, S. & P. Vandergeest (2014). ‘Introduction: New Frontiers of Ecological Knowledge: Co-producing Knowledge and Governance in Asia.’ Conservation and Society 12(4): 343-351.