Students:Reframing workshop

Do you se the glass half empty, or half full? Reframing is the art of turning problems into possibilities.

When social learning i a successful process, its actors "...learn about and reframe shared issues and actively engage different groups in society in a process from understanding conflicts and dilemmas towards implementing strategies together for dealing with them. A frame defined as 'a taken for granted assumptional structure, mostly based on values and judgements'. This means that specific frames lead to specific perceptions of an issue at stake and that these perceptions are tinted by the values and judgements of the actor who holds them. (Re)framing here refers to the emergence of new, shared perceptions on the issues faced by a relatively heterogeneous group exploring a mutually perceived but somewhat ill-defined challenge such as regional sustainable development." [1].

Reframing workshop is a "...workshop setting which allows participants to explore different analytical frameworks and refine their problem perception."[2]

Workshop setting

3 groups of students representing:

Each group should: identify resources, processes, products or benefits, mutual interrelations of or within each of the concepts - relevant for our case.

Which development goals are associated with them? Are there 3 (in principle) different development scenarios? Or do they empower each other?

Issue (brown coal mining) from diverse perspectives (envi, eco, social)

  • Which of the perspectives contradict to the other(s)?
  • Are there any stakeholders that perceive situation mainly from one of these viewpoints?
  • Pay attention to social capital – how is it related to the other two?
  • Sustainable development strategies should include all 3 dimensions – how is it possible to outline links between them? Is there any integrative perspective?

Analysis of mind maps and cases by individual stakeholders

3 perspectives to be indentified within case studies, mind maps, development scenarios ...:

  1. Reveal “hidden paradigms” under stakeholder perceptions: envi, eco social capital.
  2. Where the conflict in these assumptions causes the conflict in real activities and future perspectives?
  3. Analyse 3 development scenarios (social = integrative?, economic = socially destructive?) - how are affected by the “hidden paradigms”?

References

  1. Sol, J., et al., Social learning in regional innovation networks: trust, commitment and reframing as emergent properties of interaction, Journal of Cleaner Production (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.07.041. Article includes references to other cited sources.
  2. Ridder, D., Mostert, E., & Wolters, H. A. (2005). Learning together to manage together. Improving participation in water management. Harmonizing Collaborative Planning European Project. University of Osnabrück (Eds), Osnabrück, Germany. Available from http://www.harmonicop.uni-osnabrueck.de/handbook.php