‘You Only Start Filling in the Boxes’: Natural Resource Management and the Politics of Plan-Ability
Helena Valve,
Maria Ã…kerman and
Minna Kaljonen
Additional contact information
Helena Valve: Environmental Policy Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, PO Box 140, 00251 Helsinki, Finland
Maria Ã…kerman: Research Centre for Knowledge, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, 33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
Minna Kaljonen: Environmental Policy Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, PO Box 140, 00251 Helsinki, Finland
Environment and Planning A, 2013, vol. 45, issue 9, 2084-2099
Abstract:
To an increasing extent, the management of natural resources rests on planning as a means to enhance collaborative deliberation and policy integration. But even before a planning process can start and any joint meeting be held, a lot of organisational and ontological work needs to be done. ‘Plan-ability’ requires the shaping of an analytical and operational platform that allows making sense of, and relating to, natural resources and their evolution. Moreover, the setting must be acceptable for those viewed as important collaborators. By focusing on two regional planning processes in Finland, this paper analyses how plan-ability is created and maintained in practice. The results suggest that the planning of natural resource management depends on material arrangements that operate at two levels. Those of the first level enable focusing of analytical sight and deliberation. As a result, a planning object shapes up. However, what emerges is unlikely to stabilise automatically. Further work is needed, and this may happen at the second level of arranging. At this level, acceptance of the object configuration can be enhanced by disconnecting the plan, or parts of it, from the operational core of policy making. Through the ontological work at the two levels, an ordering of actors and concerns develops that has passed the test of plan-ability. The concept points to the experimental nature of planning, inviting attention to the forces and trajectories that condition policy integration and collaborative policy making.
Keywords: natural resource management; plan-ability; regional planning; governance; calculability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:45:y:2013:i:9:p:2084-2099
DOI: 10.1068/a45219
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