Civic ecology practices: insights from practice theory

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Our aim was to explore the use of practice theory as an approach to studying urban environmental stewardship. Urban environmental stewardship, or civic ecology practice, contributes to ecosystem services and community well-being and has been studied using social-ecological systems resilience, property rights, communities of practice, and governance frameworks. Practice theory, which previously has been applied in studies of consumer behaviors, adds a new perspective to urban stewardship research, focusing on how elements of a practice, such as competencies, meanings, and physical resource, together define the practice. We applied practice theory to eight different civic ecology practices, including oyster gardening in New York City, a civil society group engaged in litter cleanup in Iran, and village grove restoration in South Korea. Our analysis suggests that in applying practice theory to the civic ecology context, consideration should be given to social and communication competencies, how meanings can motivate volunteers and sustain practice, and the nature of the resource that is being stewarded. Future studies may want to focus on how practice elements interact within and vary across practices and may be used to more systematically analyze and share ideas among diverse civic ecology practices.

Environmental Stewardship: A Conceptual Review and Analytical Framework

“…Community-based forestry programs have grown in popularity since the 1980s, and have spread from the global south to the global North (McDermott and Schreckenberg 2009 ; Baynes et al 2015 ). In urban environments, municipalities can support civic-led efforts or develop and promote initiatives such as community gardening, shellfish re-introductions, tree planting, invasive species removal, and conservation of soil, water and green spaces (Krasny and Tidball 2012 ; Connolly et al 2014 ; Krasny et al 2015 ). These are just a few examples to demonstrate that local environmental stewardship is promoted for diverse natural resources across all environments and geographies.…”

Environmental Perception and Affectivity: Experiences in a Community Garden

“…The sharing revealed in the discourse of the interviewees in the category "relations" could serve to support awareness raising actions in the community, given that affects are an important attribute for the acquisition of new knowledge, principally when transmitted by figures in the local community. Such strategies may be used by the government in community actions involving health and environmental themes (KRASNY, et al 2015).…”

Countryside within the City: A Motivating Vision behind Civic Green Area Stewardship in Warsaw, Poland

“…We use a social-ecological systems (SES) lens of analysis [20]. Over the last decades, the concept of social-ecological systems has provided a lens of analysis that sharply puts into focus "humanity's dependence on nature, our Our choice of case study is well advised since there seems to be a lack of research on community gardens in the post-communist countries of Europe [25] and as there is limited knowledge about what motivates urban volunteers to engage in urban stewardship activities in such countries [26]. When developing urban green areas in such countries, an enhanced understanding of people's motives can help us to construct more efficient management strategies.…”