Colonialism in Community-Based Monitoring: Knowledge Systems, Finance, and Power in Canada

Abstract

Community-based monitoring (CBM) programs are increasingly popular models of environmental governance around the world. Accordingly, a handful of review papers have highlighted the various benefits, challenges, and governance models associated with their uptake. These reviews have been pragmatic in their recommendations and have supported CBM scholars and practitioners in implementing and understanding the various possible forms of CBM, but they have largely been silent on issues around the power dynamics implicit in CBM. Structured around explorations of the colonial politics of knowledge, funding, and finance, this article argues that dominant knowledge systems-specifically those that underpin Western, colonial governments and liberal, capitalist economies-shape the provisioning of funding for local programs and determine the significance of different types of community observations in shaping management decisions. To make this argument, we situate our work at the intersection of political economy and knowledge systems, using theoretical insights and empirical examples to show that funding and finance are key sources of power in shaping CBM programs. These are important insights because CBM is often framed as a purely scientific-and therefore politically neutral-activity. Through this work, we explore questions of intellectual property, histories of institutional exclusion and the privileging of certain knowledge systems, and the relationships of trust and mistrust across different groups and authorities, with the aim of stimulating critical discussions on the power relationships in CBM that will be useful to scholars and practitioners.

Geographies of science and technology II: In the critical zone

“…The work of geographer Max Liboiron and the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) has modelled an explicitly anticolonial form of scientific practice, based on the premise that science can only either work with or against colonial power relations; there can be no neutrality (Liboiron, 2021; see also Cohen et al, 2021). By combining field and lab toxicology (Liboiron et al, 2019) with contributions to STS and human geography debates on toxic politics (Liboiron et al, 2018), CLEAR's work offers a radically different vision of what critical zone science could look like.…”

Decolonising cultural environmental monitoring in Aotearoa New Zealand: Emerging risks with institutionalisation and how to navigate them

“…Tadaki & Sinner, 2014). In setting the criteria by which Indigenous knowledge may enter the state's purview, the state benefits from being seen to ‘recognise’ Indigenous knowledge, yet without necessarily reworking how it confers validity to knowledge (Cohen et al, 2021).…”

“…In both Murihiku and Tukituki, hap u themselves funded the completion of important work, even though effective Treaty-based governance should be government responsibility. As highlighted by Cohen et al (2021), this is not just about funding specific units of work, which vary at the whims of local politics; it is about developing financial infrastructure to sustain cultural monitoring and strengthen its relational benefits over time.…”

“…Perhaps the greatest risk of conceptualising cultural monitoring as SoE monitoring is that it can result in M aori participation and m atauranga M aori being channelled toward merely observing the decline of the environment (see also Cohen et al, 2021). But as one of us reflected in the zui, M aori "don't want to do monitoring for monitoring's sake […] It's an actual active process that communities want to be involved in, and they want the monitoring work to run next to that.…”

“…With the term 'institutionalising', 1 we refer to efforts that give cultural monitoring a degree of legitimation, permanence and ubiquity, whether through formal policies, funding structures or practical norms. These efforts are often hailed as empowering Indigenous communities and Indigenous knowledge; but to the extent that Indigenous-driven environmental monitoring is framed within Western science logics, is inadequately resourced, and is primarily accountable to state objectives, the practical outcomes remain unclear (Cohen et al, 2021).…”