Communities of practice in participatory approaches to environmental regulation. Prerequisites for implementation of environmental knowledge in agricultural context

Participatory approaches in environmental regulation are expected to be a part of achieving environmental targets, but experiences show that it is difficult to implement knowledge in practice. The aim of the article is to achieve a better understanding of prerequisites for participatory processes for change in agricultural contexts. The hypothesis is that the processes in the case project can be analysed by applying concepts of the theory of communities of practice. The first analytical component is a test for learning prerequisites conducted by the concepts of domain, community and practice. The second component concerns identity changes among involved farmers and the third component introduces the concept of boundary objects to concrete cooperative processes in the case project. We find that the stakeholder approach is problematic in catchment areas because communities of practice are rare in interest groups and organisations. On the basis of the theory of communities of practice, we suggest to integrate both knowledge production and knowledge implementation in the work-related social setting of each individual farm. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.