Conceptual Framework: NBS Lighthouses for inclusive communities

This deliverable report provides a conceptual framework for the project TRANS-lighthouses: Lighthouses of Transformative Nature-Based Solutions for Inclusive Communities. The conceptual framework aims at conceptualising how NBS can move towards inclusive NBS, strengthening the focus on participatory dimension, community-driven approach and inclusion of marginalised groups and knowledge(s).
The report aims to systematise and highlight the main conceptual dimensions of the project and to guide shared efforts across pluralities of knowledge(s) in the project across work packages and tasks. The framework highlights four main overarching dimensions of the project: 1. Participatory governance (Strengthening inclusive communities through participatory methods and governance). 2. Social (Inclusion of marginalised groups and knowledge(s) 3. Nature (Transitions towards reciprocal human-nature relations), and 4. Economy (Transitions towards transformative non-extractivist economies). The selection of these dimensions is guided by mapping out and analysing a diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches, based on 1. different interests, expertise, and objectives of project consortium 2. conceptual review of existing and emerging NBS approaches 3. workshops and discussions within the consortium of the TRANS-lighthouses project.
The report departs from several broad theoretical and methodological framings. It is grounded in sociology of absences and emergences (Santos, 2014) – an epistemological approach to recognise marginalised knowledge(s), constituted by unequal political and economic power relations. In the wake of the current multiple environmental and biodiversity crises, this framework is particularly relevant for co-creating and learning from marginalised knowledge(s) and practices within communities which represent human-nature relations different from mastery and extractivism, and centering NBS around these knowledge(s) to visibilise and support human-nature relations anchored in care and reciprocity. Hence, another central conceptual departure of this framework is grounding NBS in participatory methods which recognise local knowledge and experiences within communities as integral for co-creation of inclusive NBS. Hence, anchoring participative methods in communities and centering their roles in driving NBS processes is key. This requires multiple actors, including researchers, practitioners and public authorities to reflect and possibly reconsider their roles in knowledge production to facilitate conditions for communities to play a central role in identifying problems at stake and acting upon the future of their communities and broader societal challenges. Finally, we ground this framework in continuous processes of learning and unlearning – cyclical processes of identifying taken for granted assumptions and pre-conceptions with the aim of collectively re-imagining what NBS can be in terms of its transformative potential.
Based on these conceptual directions, the report provides a conceptual framework that highlights the four above-mentioned dimensions and provides guidance on how NBS researchers and practitioners can integrate these dimensions in their work. To facilitate their operationalisation each dimension is accompanied with actionable questions which can be used to guide the work at different stages of NBS implementation. Moreover, each dimension presents a key analytical dilemma to spark reflexivity about the diverse conceptual and strategic choices that work with NBS contains, and the consequences of these choices.
The final part of the report presents a detailed review of the NBS dimensions, covering diverse theoretical and methodological pathways towards inclusive NBS, dilemmas which might arise, and suggested ways forward.