Venue: University of Kent, Canterbury
Organisers: Dr Robert Fish, Professor Douglas Macmillan, Dr Joseph Tzanopoulos
School of Anthropology and Conservation & Kent’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Spatial Studies
About this event
The developing interdisciplinary field of valuing nature for natural resource management is often set within wider commitments to strengthen and deepen stakeholder and public engagement in decision making. In principle, participatory approaches offer a socially extended, pluralistic and deliberative context in which to explore, debate, clarify and capture the many and diverse values that cohere around the natural environment to inform decisions and priorities.
This conference, co-sponsored by the University of Kent and the Valuing Nature Programme, explores the critical, creative and practical challenges that arise when interests in valuing nature are extended into the participatory realm. It asks: how might a participatory approach transform the way valuation analyses are carried out within research and practice? And, how might valuing nature agendas affect the way researchers and practitioners think and go about participation?
Audience
We look forward to welcoming and encouraging the involvement of researchers from the UK and beyond who are active in the area of valuing nature and/or participatory research, as well as those wishing to learn more about the general case for participatory approaches to valuation, their contexts and dynamics of use, as well as their implications for approaches to evidence gathering and decision making. This includes researchers at all career stages from across the natural and social sciences and arts and humanities. More generally, the conference will be appeal to policy makers and practitioners seeking to contribute to emerging research debates regarding participation from an applied starting point.