Abstract
A considerable number of studies in collaborative and adaptive governance have emphasized the significance of leadership, but little is known about what kinds of leadership fit well with adaptive co-management of social-ecological systems when cultural and institutional contexts are taken into account. The chapter addresses this question based on the case study of an external coordinator engaging in a rural community in southern Hokkaido, Japan, where people are striving for the conservation of a scenic lake. In reference to the adaptive cycle framework of the transformation of social-ecological systems, the case study demonstrates two distinct aspects of participation in collaborative governance, namely, ‘empathy-based’ and ‘target-and-goal-oriented.’ Specifically, the former plays a significant role in the phases of release and reorganization by prompting narrative-based co-creation among actors. The evaluation of assistants’ performance is generally inclined to concentrate on the realization of defined, short-term goals, whereas empathy-based engagement is more inconspicuous and difficult to grasp with conventional evaluation schemes. In fact, empathy-based engagement provides an essential foundation for target-and-goal-oriented intervention – which appears in the foreground and attracts our attention more than empathy-based engagement. It is thus important to mobilize resources that provide empathy-based interventions that can prompt narrative-based co-creation among actors, precisely at those stages where conserved institutions need disruption and challenge.
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Notes
- 1.
A major part of the case study and discussion derived from it is adapted from the author’s contribution to a related book in Japanese (Mikami 2017).
- 2.
A quasi-national park is the official translation of kokutei-koen (国定公園), which the Minister of the Environment designates as a prominent natural landscape comparable to those found in national parks. Prefectural governments are responsible for the administrative management of quasi-national parks whereas the MOE manages national parks.
- 3.
The coordinator’s comments in this chapter are quoted from the author’s interviews conducted four times in Sapporo from April 2014 to July 2016.
- 4.
The word ‘empathy-based’ is meant as a working equivalence to the idea of ‘yorisoi-gata 寄りそい型’ in Japanese, while ‘target-and-goal-oriented’ more directly corresponds to ‘mokuhyo-shiko 目標志向,’ both of which the author originally developed in Mikami (2017).
- 5.
The EPOs’ staff themselves have conceptualized their methodology of intermediary support as ‘banso shien 伴走支援’, i.e., accompanying support, in which “supporters think together with local clients through trial and error and prompt them to think and act spontaneously, in order to promote transformations for the attainment of goals by adhering to the process” (Mizobuchi 2018, p. 30). Building upon their experience in a number of EPO projects across the country, they further formulated their roles in supporting collaborative governance in local communities as ‘change agents’ such as catalysts, solution givers, process helpers, and resource linkers, in reference to Sato and Shimaoka (2014).
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Mikami, N. (2022). Empathy-Based Assistance and Its Transformative Role in the Adaptive and Recursive Pathways of Collaborative Governance. In: Miyauchi, T., Fukunaga, M. (eds) Adaptive Participatory Environmental Governance in Japan. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2509-1_16
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