Between trust and distrust

Between trust and distrust – Expectations and knowledge coordination in game and wildlife governance

Different stakeholder groups within game and wildlife management make different conclusions about what is true and what is right, how to find out, and how to prioritise between seemingly contradictive goals and solutions. The governance system and its actors can easily be overwhelmed by conflict and contradictions. When contested issues are discussed in formal and informal discussion forums and meetings, the words “trust” and “distrust” are commonly used. For a well-functioning game and wildlife management, it is crucial to better understand both what the societal actors who express concerns about what trust and distrust mean, and what social processes are involved when trust and distrust are changing. Understanding this is the precondition to increased trust within the game and wildlife management system, and this in turn will lead to positive effects all the way to concrete species management. The aim of the project is therefore to unpack trust and distrust as meta-communicative concepts and to research how trust and distrust change through communication in order to suggest procedures for dealing productively with trust and distrust in game and wildlife management. The project comprises qualitative analysis of talk in interaction in governance and policy producing meetings; focus group interviews about experiences of trust and distrust; and workshops for generating a dialogic approach. It is supported by organisations involved in game and wildlife management with potentially contradictory positions, who share a desire to deal with dialogue and trust in constructive ways.

Lars Hallgren, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

3 311 000 SEK