Belling the cat: Designing collective action institutions for natural resource management in the peri-urban interface

Vishal Narain, Pranay Ranjan

Research output: Contribution to journalComment/debatepeer-review

Abstract

Peri-urban spaces are experiencing tremendous growth in the Global South, which in turn has fuelled a suite of environmental and natural resource management challenges, including inequitable access to and conflicts over natural resources, and the existence of institutional lacunae. Against this backdrop, we examine how scholars study collective action institutions around natural resource management in peri-urban spaces, with a regional focus on South Asia, and present its implications for institutional design and development in peri-urban contexts. In order to do so, we use ‘organic institutions’ and ‘pragmatic institutions’– a type of institutional classification grounded in the origin of institutions, as a conceptual entry point. We find that less is known about the role of organic institutions in enabling collective action around natural resource management in peri-urban spaces, even though their understanding is key for efforts at building effective pragmatic institutions. The paper concludes that practitioners working in peri-urban spaces should invest resources into understanding underlying social differences and developing strategies to mobilise social groups, by developing an understanding of organic institutions in peri-urban spaces.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1604-1614
Number of pages11
JournalUrban Studies
Volume61
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2024

Keywords

  • Adaptation
  • civic engagement
  • cooperation
  • governance
  • organic institutions
  • pragmatic institutions

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
  • Urban Studies

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