The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region

The appropriate scales for science, management, and decision making cannot be unambiguously derived from physical characteristics of water resources. Scales are a joint product of social and biophysical processes. The politics-of-scale metaphor has been helpful in drawing attention to the ways in wh...

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Main Authors: Louis Lebel, Po Garden, Masao Imamura
Format: Journal
Published: 2018
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http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/62231
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Institution: Chiang Mai University
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spelling th-cmuir.6653943832-622312018-09-11T09:24:05Z The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region Louis Lebel Po Garden Masao Imamura Environmental Science The appropriate scales for science, management, and decision making cannot be unambiguously derived from physical characteristics of water resources. Scales are a joint product of social and biophysical processes. The politics-of-scale metaphor has been helpful in drawing attention to the ways in which scale choices are constrained overtly by politics, and more subtly by choices of technologies, institutional designs, and measurements. In doing so, however, the scale metaphor has been stretched to cover a lot of different spatial relationships. In this paper, we argue that there are benefits to understanding - And actions to distinguish - Issues of scale from those of place and position. We illustrate our arguments with examples from the governance of water resources in the Mekong region, where key scientific information is often limited to a few sources. Acknowledging how actors' interests fit along various spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, and other social scales helps make the case for innovative and more inclusive means for bringing multi-level interests to a common forum. Deliberation can provide a check on the extent of shared understanding and key uncertainties. Copyright © 2005 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. 2018-09-11T09:24:05Z 2018-09-11T09:24:05Z 2005-01-01 Journal 17083087 17083087 2-s2.0-31544483096 10.5751/ES-01543-100218 https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=31544483096&origin=inward http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/62231
institution Chiang Mai University
building Chiang Mai University Library
country Thailand
collection CMU Intellectual Repository
topic Environmental Science
spellingShingle Environmental Science
Louis Lebel
Po Garden
Masao Imamura
The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region
description The appropriate scales for science, management, and decision making cannot be unambiguously derived from physical characteristics of water resources. Scales are a joint product of social and biophysical processes. The politics-of-scale metaphor has been helpful in drawing attention to the ways in which scale choices are constrained overtly by politics, and more subtly by choices of technologies, institutional designs, and measurements. In doing so, however, the scale metaphor has been stretched to cover a lot of different spatial relationships. In this paper, we argue that there are benefits to understanding - And actions to distinguish - Issues of scale from those of place and position. We illustrate our arguments with examples from the governance of water resources in the Mekong region, where key scientific information is often limited to a few sources. Acknowledging how actors' interests fit along various spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, and other social scales helps make the case for innovative and more inclusive means for bringing multi-level interests to a common forum. Deliberation can provide a check on the extent of shared understanding and key uncertainties. Copyright © 2005 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.
format Journal
author Louis Lebel
Po Garden
Masao Imamura
author_facet Louis Lebel
Po Garden
Masao Imamura
author_sort Louis Lebel
title The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region
title_short The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region
title_full The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region
title_fullStr The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region
title_full_unstemmed The politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the Mekong region
title_sort politics of scale, position, and place in the governance of water resources in the mekong region
publishDate 2018
url https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=31544483096&origin=inward
http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/62231
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