Experiential learning, practices, and space for change: The institutional preconfiguration of community participation in flood risk reduction

Abstract

Responding to societal challenges requires an understanding of how institutional change happens or does not happen. In the context of flood risk reduction, a central impediment of transformational change is a struggle over how public participation is understood and practiced. Risk institutions are often portrayed as resistant to change, which overlooks the individuals within institutions who struggle to implement innovative power-sharing approaches/arrangements. Using two rounds of qualitative interviews spread over 5 years, this research identifies factions within the risk sector—those who view participation as awareness raising and those who are struggling to make participation part of a wider commitment to power-sharing: a group that, for the purpose of this analysis, we call “mavericks.” Through focus on how mavericks struggle for change, this analysis uncovers tensions that arise as individuals attempt to alter prevailing knowledge-practices. The findings highlight the importance of experiential learning, active listening, and the alteration of space. By applying a relational conceptualisation, we explore how mavericks advocate for relationship building, which alters spaces of public participation and, in that way, lays the foundation for transformational social innovations. The conclusions offer flood risk researchers perspective on the institutional struggles that preconfigure how frontrunner projects are or are not able to facilitate the community participation needed to successfully implement societal transformations.