Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Practical critique: Bridging the gap between critical and practice‐oriented REDD + research communities

Practical critique: Bridging the gap between critical and practice‐oriented REDD + research... Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is an ambitious global programme oriented towards improving forest carbon management. It aims to attract new sources of ‘green’ capital to fund emissions reductions from avoided deforestation and sustainable forest management. REDD+ is transforming forest conservation, as a diverse array of new stakeholders become involved. Not surprisingly, REDD+ has proved divisive, as critics concern themselves with issues of power, justice, and commodification, while practice‐oriented researchers tackle similar issues from different perspectives, focusing on benefit sharing, safeguards, additionality, measuring and verification. In this paper we explore the different roles of critical and practical research, and argue that there is a need for greater sharing of knowledge across current divides. We draw on our own experiences of conducting a research project on REDD+ in Indonesia that involved critical and practice‐oriented researchers. We argue that critical research disconnected from practical matters can have perverse outcomes for practitioners who are ultimately working towards similar goals; while uncritical practice‐oriented research has the potential to lead to a dilution of core values of environmental justice and conservation. In contrast, forms of practical critique provide ways of researching REDD+ that have practical value while maintaining critical insights. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Asia Pacific Viewpoint Wiley

Practical critique: Bridging the gap between critical and practice‐oriented REDD + research communities

Download PDF
15 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/practical-critique-bridging-the-gap-between-critical-and-practice-40cc9Dj3Vw
Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Victoria University of Wellington and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
ISSN
1360-7456
eISSN
1467-8373
DOI
10.1111/apv.12064
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is an ambitious global programme oriented towards improving forest carbon management. It aims to attract new sources of ‘green’ capital to fund emissions reductions from avoided deforestation and sustainable forest management. REDD+ is transforming forest conservation, as a diverse array of new stakeholders become involved. Not surprisingly, REDD+ has proved divisive, as critics concern themselves with issues of power, justice, and commodification, while practice‐oriented researchers tackle similar issues from different perspectives, focusing on benefit sharing, safeguards, additionality, measuring and verification. In this paper we explore the different roles of critical and practical research, and argue that there is a need for greater sharing of knowledge across current divides. We draw on our own experiences of conducting a research project on REDD+ in Indonesia that involved critical and practice‐oriented researchers. We argue that critical research disconnected from practical matters can have perverse outcomes for practitioners who are ultimately working towards similar goals; while uncritical practice‐oriented research has the potential to lead to a dilution of core values of environmental justice and conservation. In contrast, forms of practical critique provide ways of researching REDD+ that have practical value while maintaining critical insights.

Journal

Asia Pacific Viewpoint – Wiley

Published: Dec 1, 2014

References

  • Enchantment and disenchantment: The role of community in natural resource conservation
    Agrawal, Agrawal; Gibson, Gibson
  • REDD+ governmentality in Indonesia: Governing forest carbon through the REDD+ Task Force
    Astuti, Astuti; McGregor, McGregor
  • Achieving forest carbon information with higher certainty: A five‐part plan
    Baker, Baker; Richards, Richards; Grainger, Grainger
  • Should some political ecology be useful? The Inaugural Lecture for the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group, Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, April 2010, Geoforum
    Blaikie, Blaikie
  • Getting REDD to work locally: Lessons learned from integrated conservation and development projects
    Blom, Blom; Sunderland, Sunderland; Murdiyarso, Murdiyarso
  • Resource geographies 1: Making carbon economies, old and new
    Bridge, Bridge
  • Innovations for conservation and development
    Brown, Brown
  • Towards a synthesized critique of neoliberal biodiversity conservation
    Büscher, Büscher; Sullivan, Sullivan; Neves, Neves; Igoe, Igoe; Brockington, Brockington
  • Neoliberalism and the biophysical environment 1: What ‘neoliberalism’ is, and what difference nature makes to it
    Castree, Castree
  • Neoliberalism and the biophysical environment 2: Theorising the neoliberalisation of nature
    Castree, Castree
  • Problematizing REDD+ as an experiment in payments for ecosystem services
    Corbera, Corbera
  • The evolution of REDD+: An analysis of discursive‐institutional dynamics
    Besten, Besten; Arts, Arts; Verkooijen, Verkooijen
  • Making REDD+ pay: Shifting rationales and tactics of private finance and the governance of avoided deforestation in Indonesia
    Dixon, Dixon; Challies, Challies
  • Green grabbing: A new appropriation of nature?
    Fairhead, Fairhead; Leach, Leach; Scoones, Scoones
  • The uses of neoliberalism
    Ferguson, Ferguson
  • Surplus possibilities: Postdevelopment and community economies
    Gibson‐Graham, Gibson‐Graham
  • Diverse economies: Performative practices for ‘other worlds’
    Gibson‐Graham, Gibson‐Graham
  • In pursuit of carbon accountability: The politics of REDD+ measuring, reporting and verification systems
    Gupta, Gupta; Lövbrand, Lövbrand; Turnhout, Turnhout; Vijge, Vijge
  • Scale, networks, and information strategies: Exploring indigenous peoples' refusal of a protected area in Suriname
    Haalboom, Haalboom; Campbell, Campbell
  • Rethinking Primitive Accumulation: Theoretical Tensions and Rural Southeast Asian Complexities
    Hall, Hall
  • The militancy of theory
    Hardt, Hardt
  • Forest voices: Competing narratives over REDD
    Hiraldo, Hiraldo; Tanner, Tanner
  • Analysing local powers of access to REDD+ benefits in Sungai Lamandau, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
    Howson, Howson; Kindon, Kindon
  • Neoliberal conservation: A brief introduction
    Igoe, Igoe; Brockington, Brockington
  • Community natural resource management: Promise, rhetoric, and reality
    Kellert, Kellert; Mehta, Mehta; Ebbin, Ebbin; Lichtenfeld, Lichtenfeld
  • Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern
    Latour, Latour
  • Engaging simplifications: Community‐based resource management, market processes and state agendas in upland Southeast Asia
    Li, Li
  • Carbon trading, climate justice and the production of ignorance: Ten examples
    Lohmann, Lohmann
  • Trajectories of land acquisition and enclosure: Development schemes, virtual land grabs, and green acquisitions in Indonesia's Outer Islands
    McCarthy, McCarthy; Vel, Vel; Afiff, Afiff
  • New Possibilities? Shifts in Post‐Development Theory and Practice
    McGregor, McGregor
  • Green and REDD: Towards a political ecology of deforestation in Aceh, Indonesia
    McGregor, McGregor
  • Beyond carbon, more than forest'?: REDD+ governmentality in Indonesia? REDD+ governmentality in Indonesia
    McGregor, McGregor; Challies, Challies; Howson, Howson
  • The politics of TEK: Power and the ‘integration’ of knowledge
    Nadasdy, Nadasdy
  • Global environmental change III: Closing the gap between knowledge and action
    O'Brien, O'Brien
  • Principles of justice in proposals and policy approaches to avoided deforestation: Towards a post‐kyoto climate agreement
    Okereke, Okereke; Dooley, Dooley
  • Mapping REDD in the Asia‐Pacific: Governance, marketisation and contention
    Pearse, Pearse
  • Whose woods are these? Counter‐mapping forest territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia
    Peluso, Peluso
  • Payment for ecosystem services and the challenge of saving nature
    Redford, Redford; Adams, Adams
  • Green governmentality: Insights and opportunities in the study of nature's rule
    Rutherford, Rutherford
  • The brave new world of carbon trading
    Spash, Spash
  • (Re)enchanting geography? The nature of being critical and the character of critique in human geography
    Woodyer, Woodyer; Geoghegan, Geoghegan