Master’s Thesis, 60 ECTS Social-Ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development Master’s programme 2011/13 120 ECTS
Transformation of urban lake governance in Bangalore, India A comparison of civic initiatives
Flor Luna
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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks, first and foremost to my supervisor María Tengö for all the guidance, the patience and the wise words. To Per Olsson and Harini Nagendra. To all the inspiring people involved in the restoration initiatives that I interviewed during my fieldwork, you are the authors of these transformations. To all the support of Johan, Derick, Basu, Vanessa.
Hans and Julian, you are my driving force.
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Transformation of urban lake governance in Bangalore, India A comparison of civic initiatives
Master Thesis of Flor Luna Social-Ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development Stockholm Resilience Centre Supervisor: Maria Tengö Co-Supervisors: Per Olsson and Harini Nagendra June 2nd 2014
ABSTRACT Urban lakes connected though channels across the city of Bangalore generate multiple ecosystem services including flood control, groundwater recharge, and water use for local livelihoods as well as recreation. However, on-going lake restorations often focus on recreation while excluding other users such as the urban poor, and fail to take into account lake connectivity and ecological function. Furthermore, restoration events are not followed up with adequate management actions. This study analyses and contrasts five lakes with co-management agreements, of which two were in more advanced state, and present the findings based on interviews with individuals involved in the initiatives. Aim was to a) identify key phases in navigating change, and b) actors who were key in the different phases and their characteristics.
The results suggest that strong leadership connected with emotional ties to ecosystems is key to initiating and navigating early stages of the transformation efforts, while successful interactions with formal authorities seem to be leveraged by politically engaged actors with knowledge about the functioning of the government system across scales. Stages related to the preparation of plans and proposals require the presence of actors with ecosystem-oriented knowledge, as their inputs seem to be strongly connected with improved ecological outcomes. Finally, a varied set of actors organized in sub-groups seem to facilitate phases related to building resilience in improved states.
In identifying and analysing the capacities and competencies needed to initiate, develop, and facilitate transformation, the study reflects on general lessons for local and cross-scale governance of urban commons in complex governance contexts.
3 TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION...... 5 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...... 7 2.1 Governance and co-management...... 7 2.3 Transformations through time, phases...... 7 2.4 From cross-scale interactions to social networks arrangements...... 8 2.5 Key Individuals...... 9 3. CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION...... 13 4. METHODS...... 16 4.1 Operationalization of the Research Questions...... 16 4.2 Data Collection...... 18 4.2.1 Anonymity Considerations...... 19 4.3 Data Analysis...... 20 5. RESULTS...... 22 5.1 General Context...... 22 5.1 Overview of the Case Studies...... 24 5.1.1 Kaikondrahalli lake, "A walk with the dragonflies"...... 24 5.1.2 Puttenahalli lake, "A window with a lake view"...... 30 5.2 General findings...... 38 5.3 Additional findings...... 47 5.3.1 Spread out of new initiatives...... 47 5.3.2 Upscaling effects...... 47 6. DISCUSSION...... 49 7. CONCLUSIONS AND INSIGHTS FORWARD...... 58 8. LITERATURE CITED...... 60
APPENDIX 1. Theoretical Framework...... 64 1.1 Transformation Phases based on Olsson et al. (2004b and 2006) 1.2 Literature connecting cross-scale interactions to social networks arrangements APPENDIX 2. Case Studies...... 66 APPENDIX 3. Methods...... 67 3.1 Epistemological Background 3.2 Type of Enquiry 3.2 Operationalization of the research questions 3.3 Data Collection 3.3.1 Further Description of the Narrative Interview Methodology 3.3.2 Narrative Interview Guide APPENDIX 4. Results from the Complementary Cases...... 74 4.1 Lower Ambalipura Lake, "A bird festival". 4.2 Chinnampahalli Lake. 4.3 Uttarahalli Lake.
4 1. INTRODUCTION The costs of human´s continuous modification of the biosphere are accumulating hastily (Reid 2006). Challenges like human-induced climate change, accelerated declines in biodiversity, and the degradation of both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems contrast humanity´s strive to cover the needs of a rapidly growing and urbanizing population. Cities, as the most intensely human-modified social-ecological systems (SES) are "characterized by heterogeneity, highly contested land use, rapid social change, limited capacity for ecological renewal, and high concentration of administrative units" (Ernstson et al.2010). Therefore cities pose complex challenges when addressing the provision of ecosystem services (ES), which are essential for human well-being. Existing governance structures are often ill equipped to address these challenges, and so qualitative changes are needed in governance structures. This can be referred to as transformations (Olsson et al. 2006).
Previous studies on the transformation of the governance structures that manage ecosystems and the provision of ES have identified successful governance transformation cases occurring within rather favourable governance structures in developed countries (Olsson et al.2006, Biggs et al.2010, Yafee et al. 1996). It is predicted that the majority of the world´s population will be living in urban areas in low- and middle-income countries within the next few decades (UNFPA 2011, 5). This reality presents further challenges to the developing context such as rapid economic growth and urbanisation, weaker governance structures, poverty, and equity unbalances (Benjamin 2000). Therefore attention to the transformation of governance structures in these contexts is critical.
Many authors analysing transformation of governance arrangements to enhance the generation of ES within SESs, have focused on the characteristics of key individuals and their role in pushing the systems towards desired states, addressing the importance of leadership (Bodin & Crona 2009, Olsson 2004a), network brokers (Manring 2007), institutional entrepreneurs (Westley & Vredenburg 1991), and the capacity of these individuals to connect groups and individuals and facilitate the transference of knowledge (Olsson 2004b). This research focuses on simultaneously understanding the mediation and constriction that the arrangement of social actors (or social network) sets over the actors that are part of it, as to account for both the key individuals and the structure within which they operate (Ernstson et al. 2010, Olsson et al. 2004b). As well as on identifying how specific types of key individuals and different social arrangement configurations are linked, throughout time, to transformation processes (Olsson et al. 2006, Rosen and Olsson 2012).
5 The aim of this thesis is to better understand the emergence of small-scale transformation processes with empirical evidence from an urban context in India. This is done through the analysis of a series of case studies within the same city, which allows for comparability. The stage of the initiatives opens possibilities to further understand latter stages of transformation processes, and up scaling to higher governance levels, and so contribute to the understanding of transformation processes in developing realities. Hence, this thesis identifies and analyses the key individuals and characteristics of the social network arrangements, which have been crucial in the different phases of the transformation of the management of man-made lakes in Bangalore India.
Urban lake system in Bangalore is connected through channels across the city. These lakes generate multiple ecosystem services to rich and poor inhabitants including flood control, groundwater recharge, and water use for local livelihoods as well as recreation for a growing middle class (Nagendra, 2012). However many of these lakes are severely degraded. Restoration initiatives have generally had a narrow focus, targeting recreational uses while excluding the urban poor, and often failing to acknowledge lake connectivity, as well as the ecological functions of the lakes (D´Souza and Nagendra 2011). Nevertheless, there are an increasing number of citizen-driven examples of lake restorations that seem to be based on a deeper understanding of the social as well as the ecological values of the lakes (Nagendra, 2010b).
This thesis contrasts and analyses five lake restoration cases in various phases of transformation from state-management to co-management agreements. Two of the cases were in more advanced state. Based on these cases, it aims to address the following questions:
1) Which were key phases in navigating transformation towards co-management of the lake case studies? 2) Which a) Actors and b) Characteristics of the social network arrangements were crucial in different phases of the transformation processes?
6 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The thesis focuses on small-scale governance transformations from state-managed towards co- managed lakes. It looks at these processes from a systems perspective, understanding social- ecological systems to be dynamic in behaviour and have nested scales that interact with each other. (Berkes and Folke 1998 286, Gunderson and Holling 2002, 120). The specific system "nestedness" on which I focus is that of co-management within lake governance. This is operationalized through a network approach, within which I identify characteristics of network arrangements and the role of key individuals are identified through time, in relation to the transformation process.
2.1 Governance and Co-management Governance here refers to addressing ecosystem management, but also the broader institutional context that enables it (Folke et al.2005). More specifically, governance refers to the structures and processes that emerge from the interaction of a diversity of actors, to share power, and shape collective action towards contesting decision-making and the access to resources (Lebel et al. 2006). Management, on the other hand, is understood as the operationalization of governance (Folke et al.2005), the enforcement of the right to regulate the patterns of internal use of a common- pool resource and transform it towards improvement (Ostrom and Schlager 1996, 131). The particular focus of this research is on transformations towards co-management (cooperative or collaborative management), understood here as the sharing of responsibility and power between the government and local users (Berkes et al. 1991).
Part of this research analyses processes within the management/co-management of local ecosystems, specifically lakes or water tanks in Bangalore, India; but the main focus of the research remains in the transformation of the governance arrangements.
2.3 Transformations through time in phases In their analysis of governance transformation to account for increased adaptive capacity, Olsson et al. 2004b focus on the identification of "social mechanisms of adaptability and transformability" in the case study of Kristianstad Vattenrike. These authors identify a series of results that are of special interest for this research. They identify a sequence of phases into which the transformation processes can be decomposed, namely: a) Preparation for change, b) Navigating the transition through a window of opportunity and c) Building resilience for the new state (see Table 1). This sequence of phases is as general as possible while allowing for the specificities of the local to arise can be used as a tool to better understand these transformation processes (see also Olsson et al. 2006). These phases emphasize the time dimension of the transformation processes, as well as
7 nuance possible dynamic states and requirements of the governance arrangements in every particular phase. For a detailed description of the Transformation phases defined by Olsson et al. (2006), see Appendix no. 1 and Table 1.
Table 1: Transformation Phases (adapted from Olsson et al.2006 and Olsson et al.2004b)
TRANSFORMATION PHASES
BUILD RESI LIEN CE IN THE SYSTEM PREPARATION WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY NAVIGATE THE TRANSI TION NEW STATE • Leader • Leader(s) • Leader(s) • Leader(s) • Shadow networks • Policy entrepreneurs • Variety of actors • Variety of actors a) Key Individuals • Bridging functions • Financial sponsors • Continuously adaptive • Emergence of a network • New social arrangements • Combination of network arrangements (in the focal scale of ensuring cross-scale b) Cross-scale leaderships ensuring cross-scale analysis) interactions Interactions/ interactions Network • Make connections at • Interaction between scales arrangements higher levels and actors • Building key partnerships • Raise public awareness • Build trust • Enhancing trust • Enhancing trust (environmental crisis) • Have availability of • Sense making • Sense making • Sense making solutions • Gather and develop • Gather and develop • Gather and develop • Exert political action knowledge knowledge knowledge • Managing conflict • Managing conflict • Managing conflict • Exploration of alternative system configurations and • Improvising • Experimentation c) Key Activities governance approaches • Enacting the strategies or • Enacting the strategies or formulating new ones to • Development of strategies formulating new ones to adapt to the window of navigate the transformation opportunity • Management and solution • Promotion of strategies of problems in different domains • Formalization of flexible co-management arrangements
In Table 1, a synthesis of the most important features and key aspects for each particular phase are listed. These key aspects are classified into key characteristics of the social arrangements to account for a) different types of key individuals involved in the specific transformation phase, b) cross-scale interactions, and c) crucial activities that are needed in order to successfully overcome the particular phase.
2.4 From cross-scale interactions to social networks arrangements A rich body of previous work connecting the concept of cross-scale interactions with a network approach (see Appendix 1.2). Within the analysis of polycentric orders at a global scale, Galaz et al. (2012) identify key social network processes such as information sharing, activity coordination, and problem solving and conflict resolution. These are to be related to structural network characteristics such as a) the strength and density of ties (connections between actors), b) the appearance of core groups and specialized sub-groups (actors clustering by means of stronger
8 and/or denser ties) and c) the formalization of arrangements or institutions. These processes and characteristics are argued to tend to appear and strengthen through time as expressions of the self- organization arrangements evolving in the network, and are consequently identified to be indicators of emerging features of social networks (see Table 2). Given the capacity of this framework to portray changes and emergence of features through time, it is used as an analytical framework or lens to qualitatively characterize the evolution of the network arrangements throughout the transformation process.
2.5 Key individuals Not all individuals in a network will initiate and undertake actions for change, but some of them will exert agency. Agency has been referred to as the combination of various elements like motivation, initiative and creativity driving actors to brake away from pre-existing behavioural patterns (Emirbayer and Mische 1998). Dorado (2005) has referred to agency as a temporally embedded process of social engagement, also arguing that different types of agency are able to bring about change, and that the temporal orientation of change agents make them keen to either exert habitual, strategic or sense-making agency. The main literature addressing transformation phases and the key individuals involved in these processes emphasizes the importance of leadership, and cross-scale brokering functions, as well as to a diversity of actors at different levels in the governance arrangements (Olsson et al. 2006). These functions can lie with one person or be distributed among many individuals and therefore I discuss the functions characterizing each role.
Regarding leadership for transformation, Kotter (1990) describes it as the "process to establish direction, align people, motivate and inspire . . . with the ultimate goal of producing movement or change". A vast body of literature (e.g. Huitema and Meijerink 2009, Manring 2007, Olsson et al. 2004b) further characterize leadership agency as the provider of key functions for the initiatives to maintain momentum, by means of trust-building, sense-making, conflict-resolution, compilation and generation of knowledge, development and communication of a vision, as well as the mobilization of broad support. It is further argued that transformation of SESs requires for leaders to network in different arenas and with different key actors, as well as connections among leaderships at different governance scales. Leadership functions have been identified as critical to most phases of the transformation processes (Dorado 2005, Westley et al. 2013), although Folke et al. (2003) warn which rely on one or very few leaders can be more vulnerable.
9 Table 2: Generic processes in polycentric systems (adapted from Galaz et al.2012)
EV OLUTION THROUGH TIME MAIN CHARACTERISTICS a) b) c) d) • Coordination of Activities (e.g. • Problem solving and Conflict Generic processes • Information Sharing • Projects/Experiments shadow networks) resolution • Consolidation of a core - • Appearance of a core group = Grouping behaviour of the coordinating group • Appearance of specialized network* = groups Ties Weak Weak/Stronger for the core group Strong Strong enduring ties Structural Density High High Low = characteristics Type of Informal Formal for the core group Formal partnerships = agreements
Graphic from the original paper
* term grouping based on the definition of “ cliques” identified in Carpentier & Duchar me (2005)
10 One particular type of agency traits, cross-scaling brokerage functions, has been identified to be key in preparing the system for transformation, as well as in navigating the transformation itself. Cross- scale brokering has been assigned different functions in the literature, sometimes overlapping with what has been identified as ‘leadership functions’ in other literature (Manring 2007). Cross-scale brokering has also been connected to specific ecological management scales (Ernstson et al. 2010). This thesis addresses the functions identified by Burt (2002) who refers to cross-scale brokers as emerging entrepreneurs who link groups of actors that hold distinctly different information and knowledge, and which would be otherwise disconnected. Burt further argues that the network position of cross-scale brokers allows the brokers to easily identify opportunities within and between the different social groups, and adaptively implement enterprises with fruitful results and in that process enhance their social capital and obtain higher benefits.
As governance transformations move forward, it is argued that a variety of actors or groups get involved in the process and that what initially was spanned by a few individuals, becomes a "multi- actor processes" (Olsson et al. 2006). This variety of actors, in combination with trust and greater investments in their links, opens possibilities for project oriented experimentation and innovative solutions (Galaz et al. 2012, Burt 2002 respectively).
11 3. CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION The human-modified system of lakes in Bangalore consists of a series of dammed streams forming chains of water reservoirs connected by canals, taking advantage of the undulating topography of the region (Gowda and Sidhara 2007). For centuries, these lakes have been traditional the water- provisioning infrastructure that sustain a wide range of Diagram 1. Location of Bangalore uses from domestic consumption, cattle washing, agriculture and fishing, to cultural and religious activities like idol immersion (Nagendra, 2012). The importance of the system for livelihood support has been reduced due to the dramatic urban growth acceleration in Bangalore since the 1970´s. The pressure over the lake system has increased, through the change of water extraction sources, the shift of governance in in charge of the lakes, increased pressure for land use change, and waste water discharge over the lakes (D´Souza and Nagendra 2011, Gowda and Shridhara 2005). These dynamics have led to a disconnected lake system with strongly polluted, nearly dry tanks, as well as flooding, disease threats and a decrease in the ground water table (D´Souza and Nagendra 2011, Nagendra 2012).
As a response to increased concern about the states of the lakes in Bangalore, the Karnataka state government established an expert committee in 1985 to conduct an investigation on the state of the lakes in 1985, and formulate recommendations for their protection (ENVIS 2010). But the state of the lakes continued to deteriorate, and in 2002, a new and autonomous body was established to be responsible for restoration and maintenance of the lakes. The Lake Development Authority (LDA). Among other solutions for the lake restoration and management, the LDA developed public private partnership or leasing agreements with different private companies, which took over the maintenance of the lake under less participative arrangements. This benefited the companies financially, but excluded the participation of local residents and other actors interested in the management of these lakes. These experiences created social tensions and pressure within the lake authorities, as well as in higher governmental levels. Different stakeholders rose and presented their concerns about the narrow focus on lake management. In 2007 the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was instituted as the authority for managing lake matters within the Great Bangalore area. Along with this responsibility redistribution, the BBMP received a budget allocation for immediate initiation of lake restorations in Bangalore, and it was decided that an initial number of lakes would be restored (see Diagram 2).
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Diagram 2. Evolution of Events related to the Lake System in Bangalore
NATIONAL LEVEL
Conflict with Tamil Nadu STATE LEVEL Decreased Ground Water Table and Water Polluted Creation Extraction Lakes of the Lake from Cauvery Acceleration Lakshman Development River of Rao report Authority Relocation Urbanization of Lake CITY Privatisation Management LEVEL to BBMP Allocation Protest and of funds & Legal pressure creation of LakeDivision LOCAL LEVEL
1900 1920 1970´s 1985 1988 2002 Case Studies 2007 The diagram shows the main events connected to the deterioration of the lake system in Bangalore, and different initiatives attempting to address the problem at different governance scales. Circles represent main events and squares represent events that arise in connection to the previous one.
As an exception to the majority of lake restorations previously developed, both by old initiatives and in projects under the financing and conception of the new scheme, the analysed case studies are a community-based and self-organized initiative gathered together around the ecosystem based restoration and management of a number of lakes with signed co-management agreements (Mudalgi and Jogaraj 2011). The fact that this process has been able to steer restoration processes with successful results (Nagendra 2012) suggests that self-organized governance processes can be complementary to top-down management.
The five lake cases that are analysed in this thesis were the only known restoration initiatives with signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) between the BBMP and other actors for the restoration and management of the specific lake, and are located in southern Bangalore (see table 3). This was the main criterion for the choice of the cases, but aspects such as the size of the lake, location within the city, and governmental agency in charge of the lakes, were also taken in consideration for the selection process, so as to allow for comparison of the initiatives (see Table 3 and Appendix 2).
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Table 3: Case Studies Overview
EX TEN SI ON* LAKE ACTORS INVOLVED LOCATION OF THE LAKE Mt2
• BBMP Chinnampahalli 41,849 • Siemens
• BBMP Kaikondrahalli 161,814 • United Way Bangalore (UWB) • Organized local residents.
• BBMP Lower Ambalipura 58,368 • Organized local residents.
• BBMP Uttarahalli 56,291 • ?
• BBMP Puttenahalli 46,510 • Organized local residents.
*According to Top sheet from Lake Survey provided by, ATREE (Ashoka Trust Fund for Research in Ecology and the environment).
At the time of initiation of this research, an initial round of diagnostic interviews in the field, provided the following insights regarding the specific cases: Both Puttenahalli and Kaikondanahalli initiatives were consolidated and well underway regarding the physical restoration works. The lake initiatives are well known in the city and recognized as the first successful cases of co-management of the lakes within the city. The Lower Ambalipura initiative has undergone the physical restoration and is now focused in management activities. This initiative was initiated inspired in the Kaikondanahalli restoration, and it latter became also legally connected, as it shares the same MoU with the BBMP. Chinnampahalli Lake had been leased out to a company (Siemens), but as the High Court of Karnataka ruled against these agreements, the future of this lake was uncertain. . It was not possible to make contact with anyone regarding this lake. The initial inquires did not approach anyone involved in the restoration of the Utarahalli lake.
14 4. METHODS In the following lines, a description of the research design is given to account for identifying the following aspects: 1) operationalization of the research questions, 2) data collection, and 3) data analysis. For a reflection on the epistemological background and type of enquiry of the research, as well as an expanded description of the following sections (see Appendix 3).
4.1 Operationalization of the Research Questions Q1 Transformation through time. To address the first research question, informants were elicited to provide elaborated verbal accounts or narratives of their involvement in the lake restoration (Elliot and Timulak 2005, Jovchelovitch and Bauer 2007, Carpentier and Ducharme 2005). Those accounts are referred to in this research as "Individual Engagement Stories" (IES), and defined as a historical construction of the engagement and collaboration patterns of the interviewed individual, represented in a timeline.
Although the phases defined by Olsson et al. (2006) were used as a referential framework for the analysis, the interview was designed to allow for context-specific phases and key events to emerge from the individual stories to reflect the transformation process from the participant´s own perspective. Based on the experience from similar research (Olsson et al. 2006 and Rosen and Olsson 2012), the thesis will focus on the identification of phases, here defined as periods of stable functioning and structuring of the networks with similar or sustained outcomes of the restoration efforts, and key events, defined as crucial events or actions that change the trajectory of the previous process or phase.
Q2 Key network arrangements and individuals for transformation phases. The purpose of the second research question was to unveil the crucial characteristics of the network arrangements involved in the restorations, and the key individuals within those arrangements. The identification of such features was done taking a social network approach as a framework, and elicited also in the Individual Engagement Stories (IESs).
Two essential concepts from the social network analysis framework as defined by (Wasserman and Faust 1994) were identified: social units, often called actor or node, which can be either an individual or a group; and ties or links, which are relations between nodes, assumed to be definable and measurable. In this research, the social units were defined as the individuals involved in the restoration processes and the ties as the collaboration activities oriented to the specific lake
15 restoration. Based on the analytical framework proposed by Galaz et al. (2012), this research focused on identifying the following social network features:
a) Generic processes b) Grouping behaviour c) Structural characteristics c.1) Strength of ties c.2) Density of ties c.3) Type of agreements c.4) Homogeneity
For a thorough description on the definition and operationalization of the structural characteristics of the network, see Appendix 3.3.
Table 4: Operationalization of Research Questions Data identified within the individual timelines to answer the research questions.
RESEA RCH QUESTION GUIDE TYPE OF DATA • Phases. Periods of stable functioning and structuring of the networks with similar or sustained outcomes of the restoration efforts. What? Q1 Transformation phases When? • Key Events. Crucial events or actions that change the trajectory of the previous process or phase. (Rosen and Olsson. 2013)
• Key I ndividuals. Which individuals were involved in which occurrences, as well as details or descriptions about the decision making of the course of actions Q2 Key individuals and Who? selected. characteristics of the social How? arrangements • Characteristics of the social arrangements. Generic processes, grouping behaviour, and structural characteristics of the network (Galaz et al. 2011)
Note: These criteria were complemented by the answers in the questioning phase referring to a. Enabling factors, b. Barriers encountered and c. Strategies applied to overcome the barriers.
16 4.2 Data Collection As previously mentioned, the main instrument for eliciting information from members of the networks involved in the lake restorations is the IES (Bauer 1996). Narrations are argued to be able to shelter specific perspectives in a more authentic way, as every individual or social group is prone to tell stories using words and meanings that are closely connected to their beliefs, context and way of life (Jovchelovitch and Bauer 2007). Jovchelovitch and Bauer (2007) argue that any narration contains two dimensions, namely a chronological one, which accounts for a description of events linked in time, and a non-chronological one which refers to the construction of a plot where events related to a certain issue are selected and presented to account for the meanings and interests of the informant. These dimensions are gathered together by the informant through the presentation of two types of statements: indexical and non-indexical. The indexical expressions are concrete events connected to specific time and place, which Jovchelovitch and Bauer (2007) argue can be connected to a reality external to the informant. While the non-indexical statements refer to descriptive or argumentative terms, which usually contain values, opinions, judgements, and thoughts that unveil the informant´s meanings. For a more extensive description of the narrative interview methodology, as well as the specific interview structured used in the research (see Appendix 3.4).
Triangulation is achieved by contrasting the individual stories between different members of the networks involved in the restoration of a specific lake, and fieldwork notes taken by the researcher. A possible weakness in this methodology is that IESs sometimes reflect diverse and even contrasting values and meanings. Even so, it is argued that the indexical data described in the stories, is by nature, closer to the reality outside the informant´s perceptions (Jovchelovitch and Bauer 2007), and can therefore be used as objective pieces of comparison between the stories.
The main criterion for selecting the interviewees was that they had been directly involved in the restoration efforts of each of the five lakes. A total of 25 narrative interviews were conducted (see Table 5). An additional 27 individuals were interviewed in order to refine the understanding of the overall context of the restorations (see Table 4). The total 52 interviews were performed during fieldwork done between September and December 2012.
17 Table 5: Interview Distribution
1. Upper levels TYPE OF ORGANIZA TION
TYPE OF INTERVIEWEE CSR* GOVERNMEN TAL UMBRELLA POLITICAL NGO ORGANIZA TION AGEN CIES INITIATIVES PARTY Upper Level. Individuals with knowledge and involved in initiatives regarding lakes at wider scales, either in Bangalore or 3 2 4 3 4 Karnataka State
2. Specific lake cases LAKE CASES TYPE OF INTERVIEWEE KAIKONDRA- CHINNAMPA- PUTTEN AHALLI AMBALIPURA UTTARAHALLI HALLI HALLI Cor e People. Individuals who belong to the formalized coordinating group. Also identified as key for the functioning of 6 5 1 1 2 the network.
Periphery People. Individuals involved in the restoration efforts 4 6 but not identified as key individuals by other interviewees.
Experts. With scientific knowledge of the specific lake before 1 1 1 1 and after restoration.
Vulnerable People. Individuals identified to belong to vulnerable 3 2 1 1 groups, who could have been affected by the initiatives.
* CSR stands for Corporate Social Responsibility Obs. Numbers indicate amount of interviewees in every group. Marked in yellow the members of the networks involved in the restoration initiatives, to which the narrative interview was applied. Darker yellow denotes the cases in more advanced state. The rest of the interviews provided background understanding of the restoration initiatives and the wider governance landscape in which the initiatives are developed. Group names and classifications are based in network analysis approach (Wasserman and Faust 1994) and were used to facilitate the understanding of the actor landscape in the case studies.
4.2.1 Anonymity Considerations All the information directly reported in this research comes from interviews in which the informants set no anonymity restrictions. Even so, the names of all the actors described in the research, have been changed.
18 4.3 Data Analysis The analysis of the narrative interviews was performed following the initial procedure proposed by Schütze (1977-1983) which, for this particular research is described in the following steps: 1. Detailed and high-quality transcription of the audio material. 2. Initial coding separating indexical (specific reference to who, when, where, what) and non- indexical statements (referring to opinions, feelings, values, or legitimization of the actions). Focus was laid in indexical statements. 3. Chronological organization of the indexical components into timelines. The specific elements identified in the timelines were phases, key events, key individuals and characteristics of the social arrangements (namely: generic processes, grouping behaviour, strength and density of ties and type of agreements). See Diagram 3. 4. Contextualization the individual engagement timelines by means of the identification of regularities (Elliot and Timulak 2005) between different individual timelines. These regularities exposed collective key events, phases, key individuals and characteristics of the social network arrangements in connection to different phases for the lake restoration. These features are represented in an integrated timeline, called the history of the transformation path of the lake (see Diagram 3). 5. Writing of the "collective story". This intermediate step was added for further clarification of the transformation process and identification of the social network features. As the research advanced, it became evident that the stories presented an accumulative process of strategy additions to account for responding to the challenges the networks faced. In order to reflect this in the analysis, the timeline was decomposed into types of action, grouped by strategies, and these strategies connected to the main objectives identified by the interviewed individuals as the reasons (the why´s) for their actions (see lower block in Diagram 3 for further clarification). 6. Finally, the integrated timelines for each case were contrasted to identify either regularities or opposed results between cases from which to develop a reflection on transformation phases and the key individuals and social network arrangements.
19 Diagram 3. Timeline diagram
The diagram shows the main features of the timeline representation, which works as a two-entrance matrix: 1) In the upper part, the transformation process composed by phases (yellow rectangles) and key events (grey circles). 2) In the middle block, the evolution of the social arrangements at the local level is graphically represented. 3) In the lowest block, the pattern of involvement of the network individuals, in relation to objectives and strategies is identified. The strategies and objectives identified in the scheme are a result of findings from the two main cases (Puttenahalli and Kaikondrahalli lakes).
20 5. RESULTS The results section is divided in three parts. The first part describes the findings identified in the analysed case studies, preceded by a description of the general context. The second section focuses on the synthetized general findings that answer the two research questions, and the third part describes additional findings which complement the overall picture and that are considered of special importance to understand transformation processes.
5.1 General context India has, in the last decades, seen an emergence of civil society organizations focused on making politics and governmental functioning more accountable and efficient to meet the direct needs of its localities (Kamath and Vijayabaskar 2009). This trend towards what has been called the "new politics" has emerged to a great extent as a response to a long history of slow state responsiveness to address social needs, and problems like corruption and a patronage system. This is also in response to the onset of liberalisation towards a reduction of the role of the state and a focus to the greatest possible extent on a self-governing society (Harriss 2005). This coincides with the rapid growth of a middle class, which also impersonates a globalized society, particularly in the big Indian cities. As Harriss (2007) argues, these middle classes have especially embraced this new political tendency as the epitome of the "consumer citizen", while lower middle classes or poor groups; rely on the political system to address their claims. These features represent important elements in a mind-set that seems to lie behind the emergence of the governance transformation initiatives this research is trying to understand.
A second aspect that is considered particularly important to understand the analysed transformation cases is the cross-scale landscape of the network involved in lake restorations in Bangalore. A brief description of key actors, organizations and individuals, acting in upper governance levels of the system is presented in Table 6.
21 Table 6: Key Individuals in Upper Governance Levels
TYPE OF DESC RIPTION KEY INDIVIDUAL ORGANIZA TION
Bruhat Bengaluru M ahanagara Palike (BBMP) Chief Engineer Mr. Shakib, in charge of the Lake department in Local Authority in charge of the management of the Great BBMP. Mr. Sathish is the leading officer who has the Authority Bangalore Area. Instituted as the authority for responsibility of developing the DPR´s for the lake restorations, managing lake matters within its jurisdiction in as well as its execution. 2002.
Dr. Ravindra Svarup a member of the Karnataka High Court, State Authority Karnataka High Court and a recognized environmentalist who is known for his advocacy for ecosystem management and strong position about lake conservation.
Environmental Suppor t Group (ESG) is a very well-recognized non-governmental organization Atraiu is the full time Coordinator of ESG and a very well NGO advocating for environmental and social justice in known advocator of both environmental and social justice causes Bangalore, through research, documentation, in the city. advocacy, training and campaign support.
Manvik, General Operations Manager for UWB since the lake restorations had started until the fieldwork for this research was done. According to Manvik, UWB works in a specific collaboration project with BBMP, which aims to address the Corporate United Way Bengaluru (UWB) this organization restoration of 14 lakes within a scheme where BBMP takes Social focuses on channelling corporate social charge and finances the restoration, while UWB takes charge of Responsibility responsibility funds and volunteering work oriented financing the maintenance of the lake for a period of 4 years, (CSR) to different lines of social work. during which they are to identify a local community organization or impulse the creation of one, who can take care of the maintenance of the lake initially in collaboration with UWB, and later on their own.
Save Bangalor e Lakes Trust (SBLT). Platform Adway is one of the leaders of the Save Bangalore Lakes that seeks to get together the different lake groups platform. He shared some of the history and main aims of the Umbrella or trusts, social or non-governmental organizations trust, pointing at the initiative of Ashwin Majesh, as the main Initiative in Bangalore, to bring to attention the concerns of promoter of this initiative in the first stages. Even so, Majesh people of Bangalore, and work with government does not appear as one of the trustees of this association. agencies for rejuvenation of lakes in Bangalore
Dr. Praveen, an ornithologist based in Bangalore with a deep knowledge of the lakes as ecosystems for many species of birds, which goes back to 35 years, when he started doing fieldwork Ecological observations over all Bangalore lakes. Dr. Praveen is a very well Independent Ornighologist Expert known public figure, who has continuously advocated for an ecosystem approach for restoring and managing the lakes, and his appearance in our lake stories is repeated for at least three of our cases and some spill over effects.
Ranjeet is an ecological engineer and now devoted political person who for some years had installed himself in the area, after Member of the BJP political conservative party returning from living in Australia. He has an important role in the restoration of Kaikondrahalli lake after which, he used his new expertise to promote the restoration of different lakes in rural areas in the state of Karnataka. Politically inclined Azhar is a politically engaged individual involved in a series of individuals urban governance initiatives at the city level. He has a direct involvement in the Puttenahalli and Lower Ambalipura inititatives Self-defined political advocacy leader, with liberal in relation to helping the local groups get connected to the formal democrat inclinations. management structure and having the specific lakes included in the restoration list. He was also involved in the initiation of the Save Bangalore Lakes initiatives, although he does not directly participates in it.
22
5.2 Overview of the Case Studies The description of the findings from the case studies has been divided in two parts. The first one is developed below, describing the two main cases, Kaikondrahalli and Puttenahalli lakes. While the three complementary cases (Lower Ambalipura, Chinnampahalli and Uttarahalli) are presented in Annex 4, and the respective findings synthesized in Table 7.
5.2.1 Kaikondrahalli Lake, "A walk with the dragonflies". The Kaikondrahalli Lake restoration initiative has been leaded by Pranaya, a filmmaker who decided to move to the lake area around 2001, and discovered the lake in an afternoon walk that she describes in the following quote:
"So I go there, and until my eyes could see, I could see these dragonflies. Everywhere. And I was surrounded by them. It was just magical. It was really, really beautiful. And so I was like, oh gosh, I really, really must do something."
After some time thinking about ways to take over the matter, Pranaya started an intense campaign to get in touch with different actors in the nearby areas to gather support and also try to find out who was in charge of the lake. Through her efforts she met Ranjeet, an ecological engineer involved in local politics who for some years had installed himself in the area, after returning from living in Australia. The leader of another lake initiative describes Ranjeet in this quote:
"Ranjeet he is a interesting guy, he is politically inclined he is very active in social cause. He said `look you IT types and you educated types you are only good at talking and writing emails. Go out there and do some work, if you feel such a defeat right even before you try then you don't deserve anything´. He said `at least try and fail. It is better that just not trying at all´. I saw that as good advice, and he was very helpful he was very helpful because he was a lot more cleaver about how to deal with the system."
During the first years after his arrival, Ranjeet had got in contact with a local community association, Swamy Vivekananda Kendra Trust, focused on community projects. There he got to know a network of socially interested individuals from the old villages around, like Muhilan and Lakshman. Within that association, they had gathered important experience about community work
23 and cooperation with different governmental authorities in projects like the protection of land from governmental encroachment, the construction of a public school and also the very preliminary initiative of recovering a lake in the vicinity. Ranjeet referrs to these initiatives in this quote:
So, um because I [was] completely new to the place, I had no idea who was working there, [...] I started interacting with Lakshmeesh [...], they have this small social circle, organizations where they wanted to do good and um, got in touch with…with a lot of people but it took a couple of years to sort of get that into momentum.
In addition to this, his already evident interest for political matters had led Ranjeet to have good political connections with some governmental agencies and to have fairly good knowledge about the functioning of the state and municipal structure. Ranjeet provided Pranaya with strong guidance for how to get about the complicated governmental structure and a series of political connections for taking the initiative further ahead. He also accompanied Pranaya in the process, and introduced into the group Dr. Harita, an environmental researcher from Indiana University, who recently had moved to the same layout as Ranjeet. Pranaya´s networking efforts also took her to get in contact with Dr. Ravindra Svarup (see table 6), who invited Pranaya and the group to a meeting where he had also convened the BBMP officials in charge of lake restoration. Dr. Harita describes the meeting in the following quote:
"And we had this meeting [...] and there was this discussion about the lake, and how to restore the lake, and Dr. Ravindra Svarup was telling the BBMP people to listen to us and get us networked into the lake."
From then on, an informal working relationship between the BBMP and the local residents initiative developed, starting with the formulation of the Detailed Project Report1 (here henceforth DPR). The next step was to work on the development of a proposal for the lake restoration and the eventual negotiation with BBMP officials to change the initial proposal, and include the changes suggested by the local residents group. Pranaya, Ranjeet Harita and Lakshman, from the Swamy Vivekananda Kendra Trust, were strongly involved in this effort. Pranaya describes some of the contributions from different actors in these words:
1 The Detailed Project Report (DPR) is the officialy designated document that must contain detailed information about the different phases and works to be done in the restoration process, as well as budget. The DPR needs to be approved in order for the budget to be allocated and the physical work to begin. 24 A lot of the people in the village knew, their grandfather knew that this was connected to some other lake and we didn’t know much, really, about anything [...] Harita and her student, they came up with all this cool, really good stuff and then it was like, wow, really? [...] I thought it was just like some lake, I didn’t know anything about, you know, urban tank bunds, and everything [...] So when all this, like, scientific stuff came up we were like that’s so cool"
At the end of 2008, the DPR and the budget for its execution were sanctioned. Some time after that, the restoration work began. With the restoration, a new phase of strong emphasis in monitoring and follow-up work came, where the technical ecological knowledge of Ranjeet and the previous social project execution skills of Muhilan (from the Swamy Vivekananda Kendra trust), were put to test. Ranjeet tells a little about it:
[Muhilan and me] spent a lot of time with the engineering aspect [...] we used to do shifts, [...] I used to go there from two o’clock in the afternoon and stay late until evening with the contractor and supervise the work of sorts, and Muhilan used to go in the morning at six or seven [...] there were engineering decisions which had to be [taken, for example] what are the depths that you want, or how many drills do you have to cut, or the area of the island.
And so, the first restoration phase, which included all the work within the lake itself, (excavating, desilting, putting up the island, etc.) was finished on time. With some additional adjustments, by September 2009, the water started flowing. Dr. Harita describes this moment:
"We were there that day, and water flew in [...] I still remember, it was a very magical moment. So we all went down that slope and had the kids paddle in the water, I still have photographs of that. And we were like oh, water’s coming in, and then [the lake] filled."
With the first restoration phase, still another group of interested individuals approached the lake initiative. This time, some local villagers, who many years ago had participated in an effort leaded by the Forest Department to plant trees and mobilize encroachments from the lakes (Baghat,
25 Kishore and Riyaz), and a retired man looking for a place to meet friends (Deepan). They got on board to take over the monitoring, security, and everyday management of the lake.
The second restoration phase, including the improvement of the surroundings of the lake, took some time to begin. But in the meantime, the BBMP proposed Pranaya and the others to get involved in a collaboration scheme where the BBMP and UWB signed a MoU and the neighbour organization agreed to monitor and manage the lake activities, taking care of the funds provided by UWB and presenting a trimestral report of the expenditure. Pranaya accepted gladly, but latter regretted not having considered another agreement scheme in which the local actors would be directly connected to the BBMP. Manvik, General Operations Manager for UWB (see Table 6) shares this concern referring to the experience with Kaikondrahalli:
"The first [MoU] that we signed was, it was only with BBMP and with United Way. The neighbours were not part of it, but [...] that’s a learning for us, that whenever there is a group accessed, it should be tripartite kind of agreement, so that all parties are aware [...] what needs to be done and how we can go about it."
During the execution of the second phase, the group finally registered formally under the name of Mahadevpura Parisara Samrakshane Mattu Abhivrudhi Samiti (here henceforth MAPSAS), including Rakshan and the Lower Ambalipura lake restoration initiative. The association aims to, in some future, address the entire lake chain to which their initiatives belong. By the time the fieldwork was conducted, the second restoration phase was in process, the group had increased their focus on different projects aimed to communicate and bring attention to the initiative, such as a photo contest, a series of articles in different local newspapers and a short documentary about the restoration process. The monitoring of possible disturbances on the lake continued, and when disturbances appeared, actions to solve them were taken in a more routined fashion. Pranaya though, comments about the continuous appearance of new challenges with these words:
"And to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to be in this for this long, but you know, because I was, like…like I keep saying I was naïve I didn’t know."
26 "I am, what should you say, I am a squeaky wheel. I will squeak, squeak; squeak ‘til I get oiled, you know, so it’s just that. And it gets annoying for people to hear that squeaking. You know, so, I’m relentless"
The leaders of the network have joined the initiative of Save the Bangalore Lakes, which was organized by Azhar and a group of collaborators. See additional results section. Dr. Harita comments about the success the lake restoration has had in attracting a lot of visitors and in functioning as a recreational area for old people, children, sport lovers and nature lovers. She points though at the fact that fewer birds visit now the lake, probably in connection to the human activity in the area, and this is something that she feels should be considered in a long–term perspective (see Diagram 4).
27 Diagram 4. History of the Transformation Path of Kaikondrahalli Lake
Interesting aspects to point is the intermittency of the involvement of certain individuals and a certain segregation of the activities in which different individuals get involved. The network strengthens its relations and develops groups by the monitoring phase. Note the formal collaboration arrangement with BBMP was signed before the network had it´s internal collaboration arrangement formalized. Note also, only one individual is connected to the formal management structure.
28 5.2.2 Puttenahalli Lake, "A window with a lake view". The story of the restoration of Puttenahalli Lake began in 2006 when Sarasi, a writer, moved to South City, an apartment complex located to the south of Puttenahalli Lake. She describes how she discovered the lake in these words:
From my balcony, I could see [the lake] and I could see some pond herons in the little pools of water [...] clearly it was a small lake, which was on the brink of extinction. At the same time, in the newspapers I would read about how, [...] during the rainy season, there is massive flooding in our own areas so, obviously, the lake which would have been the catchment, would have been the reservoir but now [the water] is no longer getting in [...]. And because of this, the water was entering all the houses, leading to loss of life, loss of property. [...] And I thought, ` It is criminal for us to see this lake die so we should do something about it´. "
For some time Sarasi wondered how to go about doing something for the lake, but in 2008 she made up her mind and sent a letter to all the neighbours in her apartment complex (2000 apartments), and suggested that they organize collectively to do something about the lake. From then on she networked and talked to people trying to gather support, and also investigated who had responsibility for the lake maintenance. Sarasi’s neighbour, Sarala, assisted her with ideas and discussion and her husband, Azhar, opened further possibilities for her. He is a politically engaged individual involved in a series of urban governance initiatives at the city level. Azhar defines himself like this:
"I am a liberal democrat. I believe in free enterprise. I believe in small government. I believe in self-government and [...] I don't believe in large welfare state"
Azhar has a good knowledge about the functioning of the governance system and also about the fact that the BBMP has recently applied for central government funding for lake restoration, so he used his connections to get Puttenahalli on the list of lakes to be restored. He warned and encouraged Sarasi to lead the residents’ initiative to take care of the maintenance of the lake after the restoration work. Azhar also advised Sarasi to form a trust for the restoration of the lake and to use a name that could also allow them to cover other types of community initiatives in the area. Azhar even assisted the group by writing the first trust deed draft. Azhar´s connections in the BBMP and some additional pressure got Puttanahalli Lake in the list of lakes to be restored.
29
From then on, Sarasi focused both in networking and exerting pressure over the BBMP for initiating and then continuing the restoration, and on gathering more support and community participation for the initiative. Azhar also introduced Sarasi to Arshia. Arshia is a market researcher who moved four years ago to Brigade Millennium, a huge apartment complex located on the other side of the lake. Since Arshia moved to Brigade Millennium, she became very active, first in her building´s association and then in the federation of building´s associations, of which she was president. The network of engaged people in this neighbourhood association had very interesting accumulated experience. About this experience Arshia comments:
"You need to ensure that there’s water supply, electricity, things are maintained"
"Being in charge in my building, I have interacted with different departments, at different point of times, as different issues and I know, the kind of issues you face, and the strength you need to face up those issues."
Arshia did not know there was a lake in the area, but when Sarasi told her about the initiative she immediately jumped in and invites Prakriti to join too. Prakriti is a nature lover who has lived in the area since he was a little boy and who used to enjoy the lakes when they were "inaccessible wild nature" as he calls them. He has a fair amount of knowledge about indigenous animals and plants, and immediately focused in helping in these aspects within the initiative. The group continued the efforts to bring attention to the lake and to the initiative by means of organizing environmental activities in the lake, through which they also gathered funds. The strong concern to get more people involved motivates the initiative of the Weekend Volunteers; Sarasi refers to this initiative with these words:
"We are maintaining the lake expenses purely from donations that we get from individuals. One of the reasons for this is because we want people to feel it is their lake so you give your money or you give your time. So, to give their time, [...] we organise these weekend volunteers."
In the meantime, the formulation of the trust deed advanced and when the day for registering the trust came, other people initially involved in the initiative, stepped down and left Sarasi, Arshia and Prakriti in need of at least one more member for integrating the trust. On the very same day of the
30 registration of the trust, Arshia again draws on the community of building´s associations network, and suggests the participation of Raksha, a retired man with administrative skills who became the treasurer of the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT).
The restoration work advanced quite rapidly and the trust group also started to work on a variety of different efforts. They were trying to identify possible additional financing sources, and that way, came up with the idea of participating in the Mahindra Spark the Rise Award2, a platform for funding, incubation and resource provision for Indian innovators and entrepreneurs. The lake initiative made it to the final round, and although it didn´t win the contest, they got an amount of funding which allowed them to hire gardeners and develop small additional projects like integrating a composting unit for managing organic solid waste. At this point, Arshia invited Nusrat from her previous network, to join the group. Nusrat describes her first involvement in the initiative:
"They were going to do some composting work at the lake [...] and we have been doing composting in this [...] building, like our group - Arshia, myself and Raksha were doing it. So she told [me], `Why don’t you come and help me for composting at the lake? ´ ”
The group also faced big and constant challenges. The slum on one side of the lake was channelizing its sewage and throwing their solid waste in the lakebed. Water was not coming into the lake because the old water canalization was and still is blocked and the old and small watershed had been modified with the urbanization of the area. This implied the need to find ways to harvest the water from the paved surfaces around. The group also started to look for experts and information that could help them improve the conditions in the lake and its surroundings. One example of this is their contact with a neighbour in South City complex who works in Enzen, a company focused on providing support for clean green technology. Enzen supported the group in developing a proposal for conducting runoff water from the surrounding paved areas to the lake, and according to Sarasi, their inputs strongly influenced the final decision of the BBMP to finance this additional project. Arshia acknowledges that at this time, the group did not have access to the initial detailed project report (DPR), nor the knowledge to implement ecosystem based restoration, but as they learn more about these aspects, they try to implement more and more ecologically oriented measures in the restoration project and their monitoring and management activities.
2 http://www.sparktherise.com/ 31 " We got involved [in] this, with our views being noted, after this major portion was already done [...]. A holistic plan of ensuring that the lake is restored in the way it should be done has not been [developed]. And it is only now that we are slowly into it."
The second phase of the restoration finished in May 2011. Sarasi tells what happened afterwards:
"Once BBMP finished the restoration, they invited us to sign a memorandum of understanding with the BBMP to officially maintain the lake. Initially, for the period of three years, to be extended later"
In this way they formalized the cooperative work already in place. The group continued with their activities and they slowly added different multi-purpose projects (e.g. nature walks, cloth bags or t- shirts with the PNLIT logo, and a promotional stand with PNLIT products and information) with which they tried to address different strategies at the same time (e.g. get funding, promotion of the initiative, get more people involved). The group members further specialized their activities according to each individual´s capacities. Nusrat describes the variety of capacities in their network:
"Sarasi is overall. Calling the people and dealing with BWSSB, the labourers, ground work [...] Raksha he is mainly the accountant-treasurer kind. So he has to keep all the receipts and give donation receipts, keep a track. Overall small organizing is done by me. Pratiki is also there. [...] He has more knowledge of tools and all. [...] He is really very passionate about nature and birds. So it’s good we’ve different people, categories of people joint together. So dealing with kids is mainly my thing."
At the time of fieldwork, the lake was facing the disturbance of an invasive weed, which had completely covered the water surface. In the effort of trying to identify the weed species, the group had come in touch with Dr. Praveen (see Table 6). He identified the weed as Salvinia molesta, and provided the group with information about the negative effects of this exogenous invasive species which tends to exhaust oxygen reserves in the water bodies it occupies, threatening to affect the fish and therefore also the presence of birds in the area. The network met many times to discuss the possible solutions to address "the Salvinia problem". Some members were keen to experiment and try to find low-cost and long-term sustainable solutions in case the problem would reappear, and
32 other members understood the problem as one of great urgency and favoured actions which required more investment but that would ensure the health of the system. The decision was not yet made at the time of data collection.
The leaders of the network were also contacted to join the initiative of Save the Bangalore Lakes, which was organized by Azhar and a group of collaborators (see `additional findings section´). When questioned about how they would proceed in the future and their views on this, all the members of the effort acknowledged their concern that the initiative is an effort-demanding enterprise and that the same individuals cannot maintain this investment for the rest of the project’s lifespan. This is reflected in Rakshman´s words on the matter:
"Maybe after another five years, we’re not here or we lose interest or we feel we’re old, we’ve lost initiative [...] so we need to get people into this. This is like an organization where you do a succession plan, where people get involved in it in a certain way."
Network members mentioned specific activities that were already in place to address this issue including the volunteering spaces, sub-projects to increase involvement, and the delegation of innovative initiatives. Even so, all the members of the initiative expressed their uncertainty regarding how the initiative would be sustained in the future (see Diagram 5). Sarasi refers to this matter in these quotes:
"One of the reasons for which we are always calling volunteers is also to identify people among the volunteers who will take over from us. We will [show them] how we are working and, slowly step down so that they can take over. Through them their children can take over so that it will always remains a people’s responsibility."
The networks recognize the management and maintenance of the lake is an energy demanding process with many more and unexpected challenges than they imagined, but their attitude towards them is one of engagement to improve the conditions of the lake, and preserve the work done. Sarasi reflects these attitudes in two quotes:
33 "To also tell you the truth [...] I frankly thought once BBMP takes up the lake for restoration, they will continue to maintain it, and then my work will get over and I can go back to my writing and the lake will survive"
"A lake, ah, it is a work in progress, right [...] it’s always a song that you keep hearing, an unfinished song."
See Diagram 5 for futher clarification.
34 Diagram 5. History of the Transformation Path of Puttenahalli Lake
Interesting aspects to point is the direct involvement of the leader in every strategy of the network. Network members are involved y more than one strategy or line of action; this is connected to the strengthening of relations and the formation of sub-groups in final phases. Note the lack of involvement in the Planning and formulating the restoration strategy. Note also, only one individual is connected to the formal management structure.
35 synthesis on the main findings and discussion points identified in the three complementary case studies is presented in Table 7 (See Appendix 4 for further detail).
Table 7: Result Synthesis of the Complementary Case Studies Synthesis of the main features and discussion points identified in the complementary cases
LAKE MAIN FEATURES OF THE CASE DISC USSI ON POINTS
• Limited public access • Not a “common pool resource” anymore . . .
Lower Ambalipura • Lake management within the - What then? administrative tasks of the neighbourhood association - Legitimacy of public investment?
• Initial MoU between BBMP and a • About the type of actors: company Chinnampahalli • Recent involvement of a small group of -Legitimacy aspects. local residents
• About the lack of a • Involvement of a CSR organization spontaneous social network . . .
- Is it possible to generate a Uttarahalli social network? • Inexistence of a group or network of neighbours or community individuals - Is it possible to facilitate interested in the lake preconditions for networks to appear?
36 5.3 General findings According to the specific capacities of the individuals involved in the restoration initiatives and to the pattern of organization of each group, the transformation phases took different forms in each case study. Even so, important commonalities and insights emerged. Below I present a series of key events and phases that emerged from the case studies and that seem to be crucial in the transformation process towards collaborative management for ES (see Diagram 7).
Key Event 1. Discover the Lake. The leader of the initiative moved to the area as a part of the city´s urbanizing process, as none of the leaders belong to any of the old villages around the lakes. The reported reason for their initiative to work on the restoration of the lake had to do with the discovery of the existence of the water body itself and an emotional tie to the ecosystems (e.g. contact with dragonflies, a festival of birds) or witnessing the rapid deterioration of the water body by means of encroachment and pollution. In the case of Puttenahalli, Sarasi could observe from her window the dumping of debris and the expansion of the slum area. In the case of Kaikondrahalli, Pranaya is inspired to action when she experiences a scene of dragonflies at the lake.
Phase 1. Network Formation. The initial efforts towards the generation of a group of individuals to start working for the restoration required the strong presence of a strong leader. This leader established a large amount of information-sharing links by performing networking and outreach activities (e.g. mail communications, social visits, informal conversations). The analysed cases show that pre-existing networks were an important source of engaged individuals with experience in these common issues and experience with different governmental institutions. In the case of Puttenahalli, Sarasi did not have a previous network in her apartment complex and it was relatively difficult to form the network until Arshia came into the picture and engaged the apartment complex network. In the case of Kaikondrahalli, Pranaya had a similar problem in the beginning, until Ranjeet came into the picture and brought the Swamy Vivekananda Kendra trust network with him.
37 Diagram 7. Transformation Phases, Key Individuals and Social Network Arrangements.
Q1. The upper section of the diagram shows the identified phases of the transformation process for the two main lake cases (Kaikondrahalli and Puttenahalli), and immediately under it a suggestion of generalizable names. The middle section is a graphic network representation that supports the findings for question 2. Q2.1 This section presents agency roles identified to be key in the specific phase to take the initiatives further into the restoration process. Q2.2 This section describes, in connection to the specific phase, the main features of the social network arrangements: a) generic processes, b) grouping behaviour of the network, and c) structural characteristics of the network. 38 These leaders reported that as the network started to increase and the support and interest started to consolidate in the sharing of ideas and possible ways to go about with the initiative, they could clarify a series of objectives. The objectives focused on a) cross-scaling, b) legitimating the group’s actions, and c) getting things done. These main goals were operationalized through a series of strategies, and the strategies were operationalized in specific actions (e.g. networking and later working with the formal management structure, formalizing collaboration arrangements and having a volunteering weekend program respectively). Once initiated, the efforts on each of the strategies were maintained through time.
The organizers of the initiatives recognized themselves to have little initial ecosystem oriented knowledge. According to their stories, it was through coming in contact with actors with more knowledge that they further started to incorporate ecosystem-based criteria in their objectives, strategies and actions. Arshia from Puttenahalli Lake describes this process in this quote:
"We're not lake-restorers, but we were just laymen who have learned along the way. You read a little bit and then you realize some thing is not done so well, then you happen to meet somebody who knows about lakes."
A significant majority of the individuals involved in the restoration efforts (80%) are inhabitants of relatively new housing developments (e.g. built around 15 years ago), and are originally from other neighbourhoods of Bangalore city and who also belong to what has been characterized as higher middle class (Kamath and Vijayabaskar 2009). These new groups are in the process of building attachment and an identity related to the new place they have chosen to live, and within this process, they report to share a vision integrated by common features they identify to be important This quote from a member of the Puttenahalli network reflects this point:
"We wanted to keep it as a bird sanctuary or like, cosy place rather than make it like what you say, commercialized. We don’t want fishing and all that"
The analysed networks show a very high degree of homogeneity in terms of their socio-economic characteristics. An interesting exception for this observation was Kaikondrahalli Lake, where five individuals who are old inhabitants of the pre-existing villages in the area, and who belong to socio- economically constrained groups, got involved in the restoration effort. Two of these individuals belonged to the Swamy Vivekananda Association and the other three had been involved in tree-
39 planting efforts in the lake vicinities as children or due to work more than 20 years ago. None of these individuals have been involved in decision-making processes, but rather in field monitoring activities for the restoration effort.
On the other hand, one of the enabling factors that have been identified as key for the rapid advance of these initiatives is the commonalities in vision and mind-sets between network members. This quote from one of the members of the Puttenahalli network explains this point. When asked about enabling factors for the restoration this person responded:
"First thing was getting a good group of like-minded people, so that they understand our perspective and they’ll be happy to help, because they believe in it."
Key Event 2 Contact with a Cross-scale Broker/Phase 2. Connecting to Formal Management Structure. It is notable that this phase was facilitated by the intervention of an individual with connections into the formal governance structure and with knowledge about its functioning. The level of success of this linkage seems to be connected to the previous knowledge and contacts of the cross-scale broker In the case of Kaikondrahalli, the first cross-scale broker did not have sufficient contacts within the formal governance structure and it took the intervention of a second broker (Dr. Ravindra Svarup) for this phase to proceed. In contrast, in the Puttenahalli case, Dr. Azhar, through his contacts, was able to have the lake included in the restoration network, notably reducing the effort invested in this phase. During this phase, the leader and the cross-scale broker began to coordinate activities oriented to connect with the formal management structure, supported by a small group of more engaged actors within the network. At this stage, the rest of the network was composed of an increasing number of communication-sharing links.
An important key aspect that enabled the possibility for these initiatives to advance forward was the decision of the BBMP to select a number of lakes to be restored, connected with policy and funding provisions from higher levels of governance. These actions came about as the result of a long process of events and actions that shaped the problem sphere and possible institutional schemes for its solution. At the state level, there was an identification of problems related to water scarcity in connection to the pollution of the lakes. This quote, by one of the members of the Puttenahalli initiative reflects this aspect:
40 "When you keep saying, `we are going to have a lot of crisis´, `the next world war will be fought over water´ and things like that. So, ask people, `what are we doing to prevent this water crisis? Restoration of the lake is the easiest thing. ´"
This sense of crisis was followed by a series of knowledge gathering and generation actions, creation of institutions, and governmental reorganization. Initial management schemes focused on privatisation of the lake management, and this generated the reaction and consequent civil society pressure and lobbying against these schemes. Thereafter, management responsibilities were allocated to local authorities (see Diagram 8). It is important to note is that this redistribution was conceived though BBMP´s usual mode of operation: as a top-down initiative, with the possible participation of a corporate social responsibility organization.
Diagram 8. Events Framing the Opening for Co-management Potential
WINDOW OF Decreased OPPORTUNITY STATE Ground Water LEVEL Table and Lake Polluted Development Authority Lakes Relocation Lakshman Rao report of Lake CITY Privatisation Management LEVEL to BBMP Allocation Protest and of funds & Legal pressure creation of LakeDivision
LOCAL LEVEL
1985 1988 2002 2007 The diagram suggests a series of events framing the emergence of collaborative management initiatives at local levels. Direct actions that habilitated an opportunity context for these initiatives is the relocation of a number of lakes within BBMP authority and the connected measures of allocation of funds and the creation of a Lake Division within BBMP.
Key Event 3 Start Work with the Formal Management Structure/ Phase 3. Plan and Proposal Preparation. This phase was characterized by the appearance or consolidation of a core group consisting of a restricted number of individuals with stronger ties, which focused on the coordination of activities, while the rest of the network maintained a high amount of weak, links and focused on sharing information. It was in this key event and its connected phase in which the analysed case studies differed the most. For the Puttenahalli network, the key event was about getting the lake included in the list of lakes to restore, and then entering into a phase of exerting
41 pressure over the BBMP authorities to formulate the DPR and start the restoration work. However the Kaikondrahalli network identified the key event as the beginning of a working relationship with the BBMP officials, and the connected phase, a period of intensive work of formulation and negotiation of the contents of the Detailed Project Report. The description below places attention on the later work scheme (the collaborative formulation of the plan) as it further focuses on ecosystem-oriented management.
In the case of Kaikondrahalli individuals with ecosystem-oriented knowledge played a notable role in this phase, as the individuals who provide the projects with criteria and critical eyes over previously generated proposals and important criteria to bring in. The quality of the proposal seems to be connected to the type and depth of knowledge that the ecologically knowledgeable individuals have. In the case of Puttenahalli lake, it isn´t until the network gets in touch with experts like Dr. Praveen and others, that they start to deepen the focus of the management towards an ecosystem approach, as reported by Arshia. The findings suggest that the involvement of experts like Dr. Harita or Dr. Praveen is connected with better ecological results (e.g. the design of the lake bed in a U shape and planning for a shallow marshy area in the inlet extreme, and a deep area in the opposite extreme, to generate different habitats in connection with different species). It is also identifiable in the timelines that intervention of the ecologically- knowledgeable individuals is concentrated almost exclusively in the `preparation of proposal´ phases.
Phase 4. Monitoring and Management. Especially after finishing the restoration work, the networks thought their work would be over. However, they soon realized that new challenges continued to appear, and that the work they had done so far, was the basis for a constant monitoring and management effort. Different challenges have kept arising ever since.
The different managing and monitoring activities in the case studies relay in the core group and a variety of individuals with special capacities, organized in sub-groups. These sub-groups tend to focus in particular projects or thematic areas. Both the core group and the sub-groups are composed of a few and strongly linked individuals organized around the coordination of activities. These individuals have different key capacities. The network also keeps a number of information- sharing linkages with other networks or individuals who are not directly involved in the management, specially oriented to knowledge sharing. Prakriti describes the core group of Puttenahalli Lake in these words:
42 "Sarasi, Arshia terrific campaigners, [they have] persuaded, followed up, and talked to people to raise the funds, to raise the awareness. Arshia [has worked] creating the website, the material and keeping an eye open for various, you know, for instance Spark The Rise [...] and then, we were there. Raksha was always the silent voice, supporting, thinking. So we have a very, very vociferous campaigner in Sarasi. We have a very hard working, documenting, thinking about ways and means of mobilising resources, people and all that in Arshia. And we have our Raksha who is, who is the background thinking, analysing."
Additionally Nusrat and Sarala work on the on-field and visibility projects (like cloth bags, nature walks, presence of promoting material in other events, etc.), and individuals involved as weekend volunteers do specific cleaning or gardening work. In the case of Kaikondrahalli, the specialization of the network is not project oriented and less evident, as this network is less tight and many of the members either participate intermittently or have stepped down completely. It is observable though, that Pranaya is still in charge of the overall coordination of management and monitoring. She also maintains contact with different governmental agencies and other external actors, and Ranjeet and Dr. Harita come in when she requests their help. Deepan takes care of the everyday monitoring and maintenance of the lake, supported by Kishore, Baghat and Riyaz.
The members of the networks seem to have consolidated a common vision for the lake and most of their activities and strategies are oriented to achieve that vision. In Puttenahalli Lake, for example, several of the informants referred to the lake as a "Bird Sanctuary", and decisions such as not allowing traditional activities like cattle grazing in the lake, are reported to be in line with that vision. For Kaikondrahalli Lake, there seems to be a series of commonly identified elements for the lake vision, all oriented to the preservation of ecosystems, although some of the network members reported different perspectives. This, in combination with the intermittency of some actors, including the main leader Pranaya, has generated contradictory actions. This quote from a member of the Kaikondrahalli network exemplifies this point:
"You’ll go to the lake now and you’ll see we don’t have all indigenous plants because there is a guy [...] he’s a wonderful man, [...] but he doesn’t quite get this whole like [perspective], he just wants pocket plants and Christmas trees everywhere"
43 Other important activities, on which the networks have increasingly focused, are the gathering interest and support from funding actors, and individuals interested to help through work. They do this through a variety of channels like different activities in the lakes (e.g. photo contests, cleaning days, tree-planting), publishing improvement report articles in local media, and encouraging interested individuals to come up with innovative sub-projects (e.g. bird and lake inventories, nature walks and scientific tours).
An important feature identified in this phase is the formalization of the collaboration agreements for the core group first, and between the local network and the formal government structure latter. In the Puttenahalli case, a trust involving the main coordinating actors was registered during the restoration process. Latter, the BBMP proposed that the trustees sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaboratively manage the lake. For Kaikondrahalli Lake, the late registration of MAPSAS was reported as an aspect that could have worked better if the association had been registered sooner. According to both Pranaya and the UWB representative, the co- management scheme for this lake is an aspect that could have worked better under another collaboration scheme.
In the three cases, it is evident that the actors have further increased their ecosystem-oriented knowledge. (E.g. reported presence of indigenous species and specific landscape features like flora or water level, for their presence). Varied sources were identified to feed different types of knowledge into the networks (e.g. ornithologists, water channelling experts, some times old village inhabitants). In this quote Nusrat exemplifies this point:
"I know more people like bird watchers [...] Now I know species of birds, plants, fish. So my knowledge has also increased."
Knowledge sharing within and among networks was also evident (e.g. through umbrella initiatives). Many of the network members, women in particular, identified knowledge transference (especially among children) one of the most inspiring aspects of their involvement in the restoration processes. Interestingly, many informants reported concern about the negative impacts that the increasing presence of humans have had on an initial higher presence fauna. In this quote Dr. Harita comments about this:
44 "I really see that the birds have come down from [before the restoration]. And I don’t know why, it could be temporary, it’s just been two years so I can’t really say there’s a pattern, it could change next year, it’s very difficult to say. But that doesn’t make you feel very nice."
The networks recognized the phase of building resilience for the new state is a process of meeting constant and new challenges that requires great amounts of efforts. They expressed their concern in this regard. This quote by Sarasi exemplifies this point:
"My biggest concern is that after a few years, when I want to step down, I will not be able to [do it] because I don’t have a second rank of people to take over for me. That is my biggest fear."
45 5.4 Additional findings Additional findings, not directly related to specific transformation phases are identified in this section. Two other aspects are identified as particularly interesting for the discussion on governance transformations around lake management in Bangalore. a) Emergence of new initiatives. After the appearance of Puttenahalli and Kaikondrahalli restorations, an increasing number of community-based initiatives have emerged for addressing the restoration of lakes in their vicinity. Many of these networks have approached members of the studied initiatives, looking for advice and specific knowledge about bureaucratic procedures or other aspects about how to initiate these efforts, and many interviewees report the important role of the first initiatives in generating support and inspiration for other groups to organize and initiate other restorations. b) Upscaling effects. The emergence of a large number of independent lake restoration initiatives was quickly identified by cross-scale brokers working on lake restoration or general governance initiatives in the city, who pushed and supported the generation of umbrella initiatives or platforms mainly oriented to the sharing and generation of knowledge related to different aspects of lake restorations, from bureaucratic procedures and key contacts within the different governmental agencies, to technical solutions or ecological knowledge regarding the lake functioning. One of the must popular initiatives is Save Bangalore Lakes Trust. This initiative is led by a trust working on the socialization of knowledge and experience oriented to facilitate the learning and the access to information generated by earlier initiatives, as well as the advocacy for common issues with governmental authorities. As one of the main trust founders points out, the initiative works through two main channels, a Google mailing list and a mapping and document repository, which constitutes the Lake topic within the Bangalore Governance Observatory digital platform (http://www.bcity.in/topics/lakes).
An interesting finding was the upscaling of the knowledge transference also to the formal management structure. The officers in charge of the lake restorations, were reported to have increased their understanding of the lakes as a complex ecosystem, through the knowledge shared in the collaborative process, but also through the exploration of other successful cases in other parts of India, as Dr. Harita describes it by this quote:
46 "And he [Mr. Shakib] was very keen in coming to (our research centre) and finding out from us . . . (and he said) `I’ll come and visit, if people can give me suggestions´. [The research centre director suggested] you should go to Chennai, because in Chennai they have this very beautiful estuary area on the coast, which is half fresh water and half salt and had to be restored. And they’ve done a very good job of restoration´. So he went with his officers, . . . and then they went to Pondicherry where the organization that runs it has another restoration, and he came back and he sent me an email saying you know this just completely blew my mind, and ever since then he’s become very ecologically, I would say, aware."
47 6. DISCUSSION The discussion below is structured to present the findings from this research in contrast with the transformation phases and the particular features identified by Olsson et al. (2004b and 2006). The tittles presented for every phase suggest general congruencies or differences between them, and findings from other relevant literature are discussed in relation to the specific transformation features through the discussion. Table 8 presents a synthesis of this.
Preparation for Change / Discovery of the Lake & Network Formation. In concurrence with the rich literature highlighting the importance of agency in the form of leadership (e.g. Emirbayer and Mische 1998, Folke et al. 2005, Huitema and Meijerink 2010, Westley et al. 2013), evidence from the analysed cases shows its protagonist key role all along the transformation process, and especially in it´s initial stages. Individuals with strong leadership capacities identify that something is wrong with the lake and are moved to take action about it. This initial motivation seems to be strongly connected to their emotional ties to ecosystems and/or the sense of responsibility for the common. Similar to what has been implied by Biggs et al. (2010), the case studies suggest that previous social networks have a great contribution by bringing in existing human and social capital that proves crucial to the initiative. This could, in turn, suggest the existence of latent pockets of transformation capacity, as has been identified in shadow networks (Huitema and Mejeirink 2009, Olsson et al. 2006).
An important aspect, in which the analysed cases differ from previous literature findings, is that the ecosystem approach is not part of in the initial network´s vision, and therefore, knowledge gathering and generation in these cases was more focused on cross scaling to governance structures. This suggests the need for increased environmental awareness in the co-management networks (Biggs et al. 2010), but also, suggests that attention should be paid to the motivations for their engagement. The people within these networks, who are mostly new to the area, are in the process of building attachment and an identity in relation to the new place. , The meanings of place that the organizations envision include things like a well-functioning ecosystem (e.g. "a place for contemplation" or a "bird sanctuary"). This seems to have allowed an ecosystem-oriented management to emerge, later strengthened by the increased ecological knowledge of the networks, in what could be identified as a positive reinforcing feedback, as argued for knowledge by Folke et al. (2005)
48 Table 8: Comparison between research findings and transformation phases by Olsson et al. (2004b, 2006) The phases in light green describe the transformation phases proposed by Olsson et al. (2004b), while the yellow-orange phases reflect the findings from the research. Under each phase the main features identified, and discussed in the lines below. These feature are grouped into a) key individuals, b) network arrangements characteristics, c) key activities, d) aspects where the results differed from previous cases, and e) factors influencing transformation efforts.
• Diversity of actors is a) Key • Agency in the form of • Agency in the form of cross- • Knowledge important for meeting the Individuals leadership scale brokers. carriers are key. varied and unexpected challenges
• Previous networks are • Appearance of specialized important (human & social • Formation of a core coordinating group sub-groups capital) • Information sharing to the outside. Coordination and • Information sharing • Coordinating activities b) Cross-scale specialized activities in the Interactions/ inside. Network arrangements • Strong links inside, weak • Weak links • Stronger links within the core group links to the outside • Window created both from • Formalization of higher and lower scales collaboration arrangements • Homogeneity of the networks
• Accumulative process of strategy formulation and implementation • Identification • Attaching lake pollution to generation and • Identification, generation • Networking water scarcity problem sharing of and sharing of knowledge c) Key activities knowledge • Innovation, • Gathering support creativity, flexibility
• A clear ecosystem approach • Not so clear cut window of • No crystal clear d) Where did the is not always there from the opportunity transformations. Trade-offs cases differ from beginning. other • Building attachment to the transformation • Rather a process of framing new place (commonalities cases? undesired states between visions)
• Equity issues • Constant investment of • Emotional ties to e) Factors time, energy and effort, ecosystems are key to engage influencing the posing issues to in action. • Mind-sets open possibilities transformation in individuals´perception of sustainability efforts opportunities • Urbanization pressure has • Historical and political an effect in the context matter transformation outcomes
49 The disadvantage of this feedback is though that the high homogeneity of these small networks signals the exclusion of other groups and interests. The networks´ homogeneity seems to reproduce social structures and inequities when it comes to power sharing in the collaboration management schemes, as has been suggested by Kamath and Vijayabaskar (2009) for middle class resident welfare associations in Bangalore. In the case studies, the people belonging to more constrained social-economical groups who participate in one of the initiatives, do so only in the monitoring and every day management, and not in decision-making or budget allocation spheres.
In the same line of thought it is important to consider what has been referred to as the "differential capacity of actors", especially in terms of cognitive and material resources for the identification of change opportunities and alternative system states (Dorado 2005). Social groups in more restricted circumstances may not be likely or able to identify transformation opportunities while individuals with higher education, and exposure to other realities and possibilities, could. The analysed case studies show clear evidence of a tension between the necessity of wider participation and the emergence of collaboration schemes that allow rapid and effective steering of the initiatives. The tension
Window of Opportunity / A process of Framing the Undesired States and a Cross-scale View. Windows of opportunity have been described as the "alignment of problems, solutions and politics", and argued to open for a very short period of time (Olsson et al. 2008). In the analysed cases, the features of a window of opportunity are found much more scattered through time in a series of connected events and initiatives (see Diagram 8). These resemble an unplanned process of framing undesired states for the lake systems rather than neatly opening a clear way to an ideal desired state. This framing process rather resembles an increasingly transparent opportunity context as defined by Dorado (2005) and further developed by Westley et al. (2013). A history of experimentation with different institutional arrangements and the exploration of different types of collaboration partnerships shaped by civil society protests and media pressure, clearly exemplifies this point.
In congruence with the findings presented by Huitema and Mejeirink (2009), the process of opening a window of opportunity has been facilitated by the strategic connection of the problem of the pollution of the lakes to the increasingly pressing issue of water scarcity, which has a very strong weight in the media and political realms. Very important to point out is that, what has been identified, as a window of opportunity at higher levels, could just as well have been a business as usual experience if it had not been for the intervention of the identified cross-scale brokers. These individuals strategically collaborated with leaders and the mobilized networks to take the initiative
50 and work with the BBMP, under new collaboration arrangements. This suggests that the opening of a window of opportunity was spawned both from higher and lower governance scales by framing institutional and collaboration schemes possibilities, and exerting cross-scale agency respectively (Folke et al. 2005, Huitema and Meijerink 2009, Westley et al. 2013).
It is possible that the young evolution of a liberalized governmental system, strongly influenced by a new globalized middle class (Harriss 2005), opened a phase of governance redefinition in India. In this phase possibilities for new collaboration schemes are facilitated by the changing mind-sets of these new urban inhabitants, allowing space for the emergence of agency and innovative collaboration schemes. This mind-set shift could be identified as the first precondition for opening a window of opportunity in the perception of institutional opportunities, as suggested by Dorado (2005).
Evidence suggests that specific political interests lie behind the motivations of some of the cross- scale brokers to encourage these initiatives. The resulting institutional arrangements could be a reflection of these interests and objectives. As any collaboration arrangement is indeed a power sharing arrangement, it becomes evident that attention and care need to be given to participation quotas and the exclusion of stakeholders, as well as for the ecological features of the desired state of the lake, as has been argued by Carlson and Berkes (2005)
Navigating the Transition / Standing on the shoulders of cross-scaling agency and knowledge to move ahead. In coherence with the findings from previous literature (Burt 2002, Folke et al. 2003, Huitema and Meijerink 2009, Manring 2007, Westley et al. 2013, Olsson et al. 2004b), key individuals in the role of cross-scale brokers and persons with ecological knowledge are important as leveraging vectors for this phase or series of phases. In the analysed cases their presence in the local networks don´t seem to last much more than their specific contribution requires, although they seem to remain in the periphery and available for knowledge sharing and communication. Some of these individuals (e.g. the cross-scale brokers, the expert ornithologist and the ecologist) are also are involved in the identified umbrella initiative and other efforts at higher scales, which suggests their potential to contribute to up scaling the transformation process. Further, this may be an indication that it is in higher governance scales that their knowledge can be better distributed to other initiatives and higher governance actors, as suggested by Ernstson et al. (2010).
51 Previous literature has emphasized the importance of the generation and sharing of knowledge for the advance of the transformation initiatives (Folke et al. 2003, Hahn et al. 2006), especially in the phase of Preparation for Change phase (Olsson et al. 2006 and 2008). The results show its importance in the analysed case studies to shape and refine an ecosystem-oriented management, but appearing at different moments either sooner or later in the transformation processes. Evidence suggests that this has been a key component for shaping the ecosystem-oriented focus of the initiatives. However important to discuss is if this, rather than being a binary element, is a matter of degree of the type and depth of knowledge in contrast to the difficulties that these relatively inexperienced networks have. The evidence suggests the importance of differentiating which type of knowledge can lead their efforts to better ecological results, and if that is part of their vision for the lakes.
The introduction of novel initiatives for addressing managing, monitoring and financing problems (e.g. weekend volunteering or participating in innovation contests) is an important feature of this phase, aiming at maintaining flexibility in the network´s strategies (Westley et al. 2013 and Olsson et al. 2004b). Also importantly, the groups have focused on supporting the generation of new institutions that facilitate cross-scale interactions. This coincides with previous literature on the importance in the formalization of collaboration agreements (Folke et al. 2005, Galaz et al. 2011, Olsson et al. 2004b). In the case studies, these actions are also oriented to legitimate the network´s actions, in response to the pressure generated by highly contested settings, like rapidly urbanizing cities in low- or middle-income countries.
Building Resilience for the New State / a highly demanding and constant process for meeting new challenges. Previous literature refers to this phase one where the system has achieved a quite well defined desirable state (Biggs et al. 2010, Olsson et al. 2006). Although there has been a transformation in the governance arrangement, from state managed to co-managed in the analysed case studies, the evidence available makes it very difficult to affirm that the social-ecological systems are in a completely new state. However it is possible to argue that they are now in a better social- ecological state. The initiatives have achieved markedly improved ecological outcomes (e.g. presence of different and native species of birds and insects, as well as vegetation, seasonally varied water levels, and connected functionally differentiated lake habitat areas). Additionally social and governance arrangements have, not only transformed to collaborative schemes, but also qualitatively developed their capacity to manage the lakes with an ecosystem-oriented vision at local levels. This includes the generation and sharing of ecosystem oriented knowledge (e.g. the
52 local networks maintain information sharing contacts with experts in different fields like ecology, water channelling, construction, and share the knowledge with other lake initiatives).
The evidence suggests that the intensity of urbanisation, perhaps connected to a complex and ill- functioning governmental system, is directly linked to less successful ecological results and the appearance of conflicts and barriers for the restoration and management of urban commons, especially in rapidly urbanising cities in developing realities. As Ernstson et al. (2010) argue, urban areas present stronger and multiple pressures over land use, limited capacity for ecological renewal, and high concentration of formal management units. This is reflected in the case studies by the effort that the networks have to invest in actions and strategies focused on gaining credibility and solving problems related to the different pressures over the land use (e.g. encroachment, sewage inlet, debris dumping) and the multiplicity and poor coordination between administrative units (e.g. forest department for fishing rights, BWSSB for sewage issues, BBMP for general management).
As suggested by Galaz et al. (2012), the joint efforts of a series of varied actors, and especially the work by the coordinating group are very important to both facilitate cross-scale interactions and the generation of specialized sub-groups focused on specific project or thematic areas. Possible downsides of this densification and strengthening of ties within the network can be found in the argument of Granovetter (1973) who asserts that as networks tend towards a densification of relations, very rigid arrangements can result, with little capacity to adapt to important changes or disturbances in higher governance scales. In the same fashion, the presence of very strong leaders, which has been an important advantage in previous phases of the transformation process, could actually represent vulnerability in the phase of building resilience (Granovetter 1973). As Huitema and Mejeirink (2009) have argued, individual entrepreneurship (agency) is good, but collective entrepreneurship is better, as it ensures response diversity and a different set of capabilities to draw from in response to different disturbances.
The constant tension between the inertia of the social network and the emergent steering force of key individuals seem to be present in all the transformation process, but rather in the form of a dynamic than a static balance. Before any transformation effort, other social networks seem to be the incubators of human and social capital and act as transformation capacity pockets. When the transformation efforts initiate, the role of agency in the form of leadership is crucial. Later when the transition takes place, cross-scale brokers are key in steering the initiatives. Knowledgeable individuals are important to the process, and networks show an increased capacity for finding, generating and sharing knowledge too. By the time the initiatives are in the phase of building
53 resilience for the new state, networks have evolved, and grouped into coordinating and specialized subgroups. The network´s inner ties have strengthened and the outer ones weakened, they show as well increased actor variety, and they exhibit a more balanced interplay between the networks and key change agents.
In the phase of building resilience for an improved state the networks have accumulated an amount of different lines of actions to back up their different strategies, and meet the different challenges that constantly arise regarding the monitoring and management of the lakes. This constant work and effort has been identified as an aspect of major concern by the networks. As has been argued by Huitema and Mejeirink (2009), the phase of building resilience is extremely time and energy consuming. The present collaboration schemes still rely on the voluntary work of the local networks to ensure constant monitoring and managing, and fund gathering. This could be clearly pointing out to the question of durability of the initiatives in longer time frames.
This matter extends also to the extreme dependence of these initiatives on constant and adaptive agency in the style suggested by Folke et al. (2005). In this sense, important questions regarding the maintenance of agency attributes in the networks regardless of the disappearance of specific individuals and the emergence of others, is a major issue for further research. Westley et al. (2013) argue that an important step forward is the formalization of collaboration agreements, but the question still remains if these new institutional schemes are capable to prompt for adaptive co- management in the deficiency of agency.
Moving on to the next transformation scale? These are not crystal clear examples of transformation. Equality issues and the incorporation of ecosystem-oriented knowledge are key aspects that can and need to be part of the very soul of transformation initiatives. But the experimental nature and early stage of these experiences opens up possibilities for the incorporation of those issues in a process of re-defining visions and objectives, that has been identified to be characteristic of adaptive governance arrangements (Folke et al. 2005, Olsson et al. 2006). Further research is needed as to understand these processes.
Important dynamics and patterns of self-organization in the networks involved in these initiatives suggest that against a very resilient and well-established top-down governance system, there are emergent and alternative system arrangements, incorporating elements like agency, the generation transmission and utilization of ecosystem oriented knowledge, and formalized collaboration schemes. These elements could enable the transition to better-functioning governance
54 arrangements. It is in those pockets of transformation capacity that important and alternative governance arrangements can be experimented and tested against pressing issues, especially in rapidly growing urban settings and complex institutional contexts, like Indian cities.
An encouraging feature for up scaling is, for example, the emergence of an umbrella initiative trying to group all the lake restoration efforts that are appearing in the city. Another feature is initiative at city and state level where governmental offices have developed guidelines for the socio- ecologically oriented restoration of lakes. These features also point to more decentralized governance arrangements in the style of polycentric institutions (Folke et al. 2005, Galaz et al. 2010, Ostrom 2010). However these up-scaling signs also need to be closely examined. For example the umbrella initiatives seem to be mainly focused in addressing the transmission of knowledge and the sharing of experiences in order to solve common issues, like governmental procedures and innovative solutions. One important aspect that both the umbrella initiatives and the formal management structure seem to be failing to address is the understanding or management of larger ecological scales such as the different lake chains (Galaz et al. 2008). Important exceptions to this possible weakness is the objective of MAPSAS to address the entire Kaikondrahalli lake chain, and the reported initiative of the Chief Conservator of Forest for the BBMP to generate a document with guiding principles for the restoration and management of lakes in Bangalore, where they specifically identify the importance of addressing wider scales and connectivity of the lakes systems.
55 What does this all mean? The subject of transformations has received increased attention, and the evidence from multiple case studies suggests these processes are composed by a series of clearly identifiable phases. Windows of opportunity present an opening in the institutional context, and agency in the form of leadership and cross-scale brokering, as well as the identification, generation, and transmission of knowledge play a very important role in steering transformations further ahead. The evidence from this research supports these arguments.
Moreover, important insights on the added difficulties that governance transformations can face in more complex realities are presented in this thesis. Issues of inequality poorly functioning government structures and very fast urbanization dynamics are among the most pressing aspects that require a closer look within the transformation framework. Furthermore, this research brings insights on aspects like the influence of historical, political and socio-economical context, as well as mind-sets and worldviews and their influence in transformation processes. However further research needs to focus in the understanding of these elements in relation to transformations.
The aim of this research was to explore the transformation processes of specific and similar case studies in a fast-growing Indian city. The research design although allowing for a better understanding of these processes through time in the specific context of lake co-management, merely allowed for different aspects influencing these processes to emerge. The method chosen is especially effective in eliciting the specific transformation processes through time and exposing the individual´s motivations, worldviews and beliefs that motivate their action. However, the emergence of the integrated lake stories relies in the triangulation between different individual stories and this presents the weakness of not accounting for possible co-constructed group narratives, which have been argued to arise in very closely tied networks.
56 7. CONCLUSIONS AND INSIGHTS FORWARD
1. The evidence clearly points to transformed governance arrangements in the local level with interesting and promising signs of up-scaling for wider governance levels. 2. The achieved transformations are not flawless. . They seem to reproduce social structures and inequities when it comes to power sharing in the collaboration management schemes. Exceptions suggest possibilities for improved future similar initiatives. . Ecosystem-oriented management was not a clear objective from the beginning of these efforts. It has rather emerged protected by the commonalities with the particular vision the involved groups had for the lakes. It was later developed in direct connection with the increased knowledge of the networks. . Specific political interests and in general power tensions shape and affect the transformations. . The level of urbanization tends to complicate restoration efforts as urbanized areas are more contested and pressured. They therefore demand the investment of the network´s energy and resources in actions and strategies focused on gaining credibility and solving conflicts and problems. 3. Important key aspects of these transformations have been: . Agency in the form of leadership and cross-scaling functions has been indispensable for the rise and steering of these initiatives. But possibilities to distribute and diversify agency although making the initiatives less effective, could guarantee lower vulnerability. . Ecological knowledge is key in order to guarantee an ecosystem oriented restoration and management of urban lakes. It is important are to understand what types of knowledge can improve ecological results and how that connects to the vision of the lake that the steering individuals have. Also the depth of the knowledge seems to be important in two opposite ways, to allow enough detail for management, and not too much detail for it to be internalized by varied actors. . A common vision is important/critical, especially in connection to the knowledge generated and shared by the networks. This represents an effective way of transmitting knowledge, goals, efforts needed, and inspiration. . Previous networks and a variety of actors are important to guarantee increased capacity to adapt and respond to different challenges. This variety needs to be understood also in terms of different socio-economic groups and interests. . Emotional ties to ecosystems seem to have an important role in appealing to the deep
57 connection of human beings with nature and inspiring the necessity for transformations in the mind-sets of individuals with agency and capacity. A shift in mind-sets towards more open bottom-up governance arrangements might be the first step in a transformation process. . The bigger context matters. Worldviews, self-identification and historical context set the scene for social networks to identify certain pathways, solutions and ideal visions as preferable. Strongly prevalent social structures and stratifications seem very difficult to change and even novel, bottom up and self-organized initiatives tend to reproduce these structures.
Our understanding on how to foster the appearance of key aspects facilitating the capacity of systems to transform is still very limited. Further understanding of elements or factors of leverage motivation to initiate action, or the facilitation of the emergence of agency could further advance our capacity to better understand the stirring of transformations. The upscaling of bottom-up and self organized transformations needs to be further understood
Just as important is the further understanding of factors diminishing the transformative capacity of systems, or stirring transformations in undesirable directions. Aspects like inequalities, vested interests, the effects of rapid urbanization, historical mind-sets or worldviews need to be looked at from a transformation lens. Additionally, based on the knowledge we have on factors facilitating transformations, non-transformation case studies can be a rich source of insights for further understanding.
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63 APPENDIX 1. Theoretical Framework 1.1 Transformation Phases based on Olsson et al.(2004b and 2006) When referring to the first phase, Olsson et al.(2006) points out that the range of activities in preparation for change, usually include the exploration of alternative system configurations and governance approaches, as well as the development of strategies for creating and consolidating the conditions towards those new configurations. These activities are usually developed within self- organized networks of people who share and generate knowledge, and are stirred by a leader who encourages trust building and pushes those strategies. They usually involve communication, diffusion activities, and networking at higher governance levels, as well as building key partnerships. These informal networks can emerge either slowly or very quickly if pre-existing shadow networks are mobilized under the sense of crises.
In order to move the system towards a transition, leaders usually identify a "window of opportunity" or the "coupling between problems, solutions and politics" constrained to a limited period of time (Kingdon 1995). These windows of opportunity, can be unlocked, for example, as a consequence of a perceived or real crises, failure in the present management systems or legal actions by activist groups, and it is argued that the opening and usage of such a window of opportunity, requires the initial network to have connected to other levels of the governance structure so as to facilitate cross-scale interactions (Olsson et al.2004b).
The phase of navigating the transition is identified by Olsson et al.(2006) to be strongly connected with aspects of financing and technological solutions as key ingredients. Furthermore, the importance of leadership in connection with a diversity of other actors and a good timing are identified as essential to develop new social structures and establish new processes and institutions at different levels in order to assure an increased capacity of the governance arrangements to account for ecosystem oriented management. In this phase, network-bridging functions (Olsson et al. 2006) are identified as critical.
Finally, it is argued that the constant adaptive capacity of the system to generate new knowledge and connect it to the managing practices, as well as maintaining a diversity of actors and different types of cross-scale interactions, are key to support the building of resilience in the new state. Olsson et al. (2004b) further argue that efforts need to be focused on three aspects: a) Developing motivation and values for ecosystem management, through continuous revision and enforcement of vision and objectives and their communication, the building of support and the development of norms to avoid conflicts and the loss of trust, b) Directing the system through adaptive
64 collaborative management, by means of encouraging, inspiring and supporting actors for voluntary participation to monitor and manage for biodiversity and ES, as well as to mobilize individuals and provide them with coordination and collaboration arenas for developing problem-driven projects which can catalyse barriers into possibilities, and c) Navigating the larger environment, by influencing decision makers towards adaptive co-management, mobilizing funding and external knowledge, exchanging information and collaboration with local and international associations, scientists and non-governmental organizations. Social learning processes involving a diversity of actors, and leadership functions are identified as critical in this phase.
1.2 Literature connecting cross-scale interactions to social networks arrangements The phenomena that this research is trying to grasp, requires an approach that is capable for acknowledging the multiplicity of levels and actors, as well as the variety of possible relations between them. Carlsson and Berkes (2005) suggest that this complexity can be better understood from a social network approach, and Folke et al. 2005 further elaborate on the importance of networks to account for key activities such as knowledge generation and diffusion, social learning, coordination of activities, the building of trust and conflict resolution. Furthermore, the pertinence to understand transformation processes through time, relies in the interplay between the agency exerted by key individuals, and the framing, constriction and mediation by the network structure in which they are embedded (Dorado 2005, Emirbayer & Goodwin 1994, Wasserman & Faust 1994, Westley et al. 2013)
65 APPENDIX 2, Case Study Description Diagram 9
Kaikondrahalli
Chinnampahalli
Lower Ambalipura
Chinnampahalli Puttenahalli
66 APPENDIX 3, Methods 3.1 Epistemological Background This research departs from a relativist ontological position by recognizing that the "reality" perceived and described by any individual, is a social construction of the objective reality, mediated by the individual´s beliefs, values, form of life and any other conceptual scheme and context that frame the construction of the reality for that particular individual (Guba & Lincoln 1994, Bernard 2002). This research is thus based on a descriptive and interpretive epistemological approach as it seeks to describe "reality" ("other´s realities") and understand how it unfolds through time, but recognizes that within the process of understanding any phenomenon or in acquiring any knowledge, it is impossible for the researcher to avoid bias (Elliot and Timulak 2005). Thus, the realities elicited are also mediated by the researchers own beliefs, values and previous conceptual structure, which frames the new knowledge, and as such, both the participant and the researcher are considered co-constructors of meaning (Mills et al. 2006).
3.2 Type of Enquiry As it is the purpose of this research, to explore phenomena occurring in complex systems, and it seeks not to simplify the understanding of that system, but to acknowledge complexity in the research design, a necessary characteristic of the research is that it be exploratory (Elliot and Timulak 2005). It is argued that the only way to understand social reality is by understanding the meanings that people assign to that reality (Shutz 1962), and further that those meanings are of particular importance for the process of manage and decision-making, as it is departing from them, that people identify certain situations as problematic, organize for addressing it and finally make decisions and take actions to tackle it (Checkland et al.1981 and Cundill et al. 2011). In this sense, a qualitatively oriented research design is considered to have the capacity to elicit in-depth and detail rich accounts of the transformation processes, as well as of the social network involved (Elliot and Timulak 2005) and therefore it is used in this research.
Although the analysed cases may show important differences, similar characteristics like their location in the city, relative similar size and to be under the jurisdiction of the same governmental agency, allow for comparison and thus a better understanding of the governance transformations that these networks are going through, as well as the effect of other ecological aspects in the success of the different cases. The five lake cases that are analysed in this thesis were chosen based on two main criteria: a) that the cases have a signed memorandum of understanding between the governmental office in charge of the lake management and a local counterpart, and b) that they are a product of a voluntary initiative, ideally (but not exclusively) from local residents, to work on the
67 restoration and management of the specific lake. The first characteristic is expected to account for the existence of a transformation in the governance arrangement around lake restoration and management, while the second characteristic is expected to further ensure the validity of this transformation by excluding cases of top-down imposition of the management arrangement.
3.3 Operationalization of the research questions 3.3.1 Operationalization of qualitative social network analysis a) Generic processes of the network. Focused on the contents of the social-network interaction, here defined as the types of main activities performed by the network, namely information sharing, coordination of activities, development of projects and/or experimentation and lastly problem solving and conflict resolution. b) Grouping behaviour of the network. Defined as the self-organizing pattern of the network, towards the formation of sub-groups or cliques, consisting of at least three actors (Carpentier & Ducharme 2005), sharing links related to specific types of activities or projects. c) Structural characteristics of the network. In this research, the focus is laid in four aspects (See Annex XX for further development): c.1 Strength of ties. Based on the definition by Granovetter (1973), this research identifies them as the combination of the amount of time and the reciprocal services within each tie. As it has been argued by Galaz et al. (2012), the main type of activity or generic process that these network focus on, is an expression of the evolution in the strength of ties through time. The identified generic processes between two actors are therefore used as proxy for the identification of a strength degree, and other qualitative data is complementing the identification of the degree of ties for this research. c.2 Density of ties. Defined as the number of connections with other actors. c.3 Type of agreements. Identified to be either informal or formal. c.4 Homogeneity. Defined as the similarity between actors according to specific criteria (Carpentier & Ducharme 2005). In this research, the concept of homogeneity was operationalized by a qualitative assessment of the socio-economic characteristics of the interviewee according to the classification of middle class associations developed by Kamath and Vijayabaskar (2009). See Table 9.
68
3.3.1 Homogeneity Operationalization. Table 9: Typology of Middle Class RWAs (adapted from Kamath and Vijayabaskar 2009)
CHARACTERIZA TION MIDDLE CLASS SEG MEN T CONCERNS DIFFEREN TIAL ACCESS TOOLS OF SO CIAL ACCOUNTABILITY OCCUPATION TYPE OF URBAN DEV ELOPMEN T
High bureaucracy levels, older The value and ownership of Elite RWAs* They usually use English media public and private corporate sector - property. (many RWA´s members report direct firms and defence personnel. Prefer direct contact to topmost contact) and internet to officials, whith whom they have communicate and self-organize, contact through common social although the use of traditional Tend to work in sectors to the new networks based on their socio- methods like writing letters or globalized world (e.g. software They usually live in gated services), and therefore tend to They tend to have very few economic background. Local making complaints is also common. communities, therefore isolated New elites Corporators are generally hostile in They also tend to rely on the occupy new and different new times- points of interest for collective from typical problems of spaces (e.g. longer work hours and RWAs* action. particular to elite RWAs. Information (RTI) Act, the master deficiency in services and urban planning process and the courts as high mobility). This implies that hey amenities. main action mechanisms. have less connections or root to their physical locations.
These individuals tend think that elected representatives are corrupt Usually located in old core areas Traditional and lack vision due to the fact that Mainly integrated by retired or older Focus on cultural and religious less pressured by urban growth middle class they are uneducated. However they . middle and higher level bureaucrats values and with no problem with access recognize the considerable influence and formal sector employees. RWAs* to urban services and amenities. that these Corporators exert, and therefore interact with them.
“ Revenue layouts that have been regularized over time, expansions “ Middle and lower levels of the “ Cashing in on high land to urban villages, or semi- Their points of contact with the bureaucracy, police and private values to enhance the exchange developed BDA layouts and, as a bureaucracy were mainly mid, lower sector, involved in wholesale and value (i.e., income flows) of consequence, suffer patchy Upwardly and field level engineers. They tend retail trade and other better paying their property” . The RWA´s They are very open to the use of service delivery. Revenue layouts mobile and work more comfortably and closely informal sector jobs. There is also located in unauthorized land explicitly confrontationist strategies are typically formed by the with councillors focused on the some proportion of landowning lower middle focus on getting access or (e.g. street demonstrations). acquisition of agricultural land improvement of public services. population who have shifted from class RWAs* improving their amenities in by private developers and They tend to have stronger political farming to new land-based comparison to the standards of subsequent development into inclinations. occupations like real estate and the core city. “ unauthorized” layouts without money lending.” the necessary land conversion and planning permissions.”
* RWA: Resident Welfare Association
69 3.4 Data Collection 3.4.1 Further Description of the Narrative Interview Methodology The main purpose of the Narrative Interview technique is to elicit a reconstruction of social events from the perspective of the informant as straightforwardly as possible, by means of story telling and listening. The proposal is based in the assumption that the scheme within which every story telling is developed, has three main characteristics (Jovchelovitch and Bauer 2007): a) detailed descriptions, as the informant needs to substantiate the transition from one event to the other, b) account for the informant´s beliefs and values, and c) the story will be reported completely from beginning to end. A central aspect to the technique is the possibility of appreciating differences between the perspectives of different interviewees.
The technique encompasses a previous preparation phase, during which the researcher tries to find out as much as possible about the topic in question, and formulates questions reflecting the focus of the researcher. The interview itself initiates with an introduction to the procedure and the presentation of the topic for the narration, which is followed by the narration itself. When the informant signalizes the end of the narration, the researcher proceeds with a phase of questioning where previously prepared questions are rephrased using the informant´s own words. When the questioning phase is over, the recorder is turn off and a space for informal talk is opened, see Bauer (1996) and Jovchelovitch and Bauer (2007). This research uses the technique with high fidelity except for including a "why" question in the questioning phase and using specific terms which were not rephrased into the interviewed words, as the individuals did not refer to those concepts (see table 10).
Although considered a suitable instrument for eliciting information about a specific matter through time, some problematic issues have been identified around the application of the Narrative Interview methodology. Firstly, the expectations that the informant develops about the interview itself are difficult to control. This is strongly connected to the problem of "strategic communication", which cannot be completely ruled out in this technique (Jovchelovitch and Bauer 2007). Additionally, for this specific research, it is considered that the inclusion of a why-question, as well as the use of exmanent terms in the questioning phase, could have an influence in the framing of the responses in this particular phase, which could imply a poorer reflection of the meanings of the informants.
70 The main criterion for selecting the interviewees was that they had been directly involved in the restoration efforts of each of the five lakes. All relevant individuals in each network were interviewed up to the point when no new members of the networks were mentioned or the information and detail about the restoration processes themselves became very limited (Elliot and Timulak 2005). Exceptions to this main criterion were individual not involved in the main groups who were not located, not interested or not available to do the interview. A total of 25 narrative interviews were conducted (see Table 5, in the main text).
Additionally, a total of 27 individuals were interviewed in order to refine the understanding of the overall context of the restorations. Among these, 4 interviews were made to experts, 7 interviews were made to individuals belonging to vulnerable groups who could be affected by the restoration efforts (3 fishermen, 2 cattle owners who used to wash their animals in the lake and 2 inhabitants of encroachments). Also, 16 interviews were made to individuals involved in the lake restoration subject at higher levels of the governance system (3 NGO members, 2 members of corporate responsibility organizations, 4 officials working in governmental agencies, 3 individuals involved in umbrella initiatives and 4 individuals belonging to political parties). Although some of them resulted to be more deeply involved in the specific restorations, they also helped to provide a wider understanding of the overall context, (See Table 5, in the main text).
71 3.4.1 Narrative Interview and its Variations for this Research Table 10: Narrative interview (Jovchelovitch and Bauer 2007) vs. research adaptation
72 Diagram 10: Narrative Interview Design for the Research
M ain I nstrument: 1. Introduction of the interview.
Narrative 0. Brief and broad explanation of the investigation. interview 1. Request of permission to record and explanation of terms of anonymity and confidentiality of the interview. Support Material: 2. Explanation of the procedure of the interview: Voice recorder + • Uninterrupted story telling by the informant. notes. • Question phase
2. Eliciting question for the main narration:
Please tell me the story of your involvement in the restoration of (Name of the Lake) restoration.
3. I nmanent Guiding Questions (after the story):
1. Why restoration? (what was the main problem/main features of the “before” state)
2. Desired state (if not there yet) 3. Key individuals and their pattern of relation 5. Enabling factors 6. Barries encountered
7. Strategies applied (to barriers/ windows of opportunity)
8. Outcomes of the restoration efforts (where the main problems solved?)
9. Unsolved/Unattended issues (to do in the future . . .)
73 APPENDIX 4. Results from the Complementary Cases Complementing the result section in the main text, here the results from the complementary cases are presented. a) Lower Ambalipura lake, "A bird festival". The fieldwork revealed that this lake has the peculiarity of being completely surrounded by private property, and therefore not having a direct public access. The restoration of Lower Ambalipura lake was taken over under the collaboration between BBMP and the Trinity Acres and Woods Association, here called the Trinity residents’ association, under the leadership of Rakshan, an IT company entrepreneur living in the Trinity house complex. In his narrative Rakshan conveys that he and his family moved to a house in front of the lake and from his living room window was able to see an amazing amount and diversity of birds. This moved him to find out ways to do something for what was also a sewage pool with very unpleasant smell and mosquito problems.
Although the concern for the lake and initial contact with BBMP was done by Rakshan on his own initiative, he quickly came in contact with the key individuals involved in the restoration of Kaikondrahalli lake and was able to take advantage of the network´s knowledge about the formal governance system and state of things, to get Lower Ambalipura lake on BBMP´s list of lakes to restore. Raje´s networking efforts also took him to get in contact with Dr. Praveen, who provided Rakshan with extensive ecological knowledge and criteria, so when the BBMP presented their initial restoration proposal, Rakshan could advocate for the inclusion of these criteria in the DPR.
After the restoration work was finished, the maintenance of the lake was left in the hands of the Trinity residents’ association which receives funding contributions from the other housing complexes around the lake, and takes care of the every day maintenance and monitoring. The lake is open to the general public, but the access is through the Trinity complex and therefore less obvious. The initial knowledge exchange with the Kaikondrahalli network, continued to become a formalized cooperation scheme when Rakshan joined the association created for the maintenance of both lakes, Mahadevpura Parisara Samrakshane Mattu Abhivrudhi Samiti (MAPSAS). According to Rakshan, there is a great amount of daily visitors in the lake (around 300 per day), but this has pushed away the birds, and there are not so many birds as there used to be (see Diagram 11).
74 Diagram 11. History of the Transformation Path of Lower Ambalipura Lake
Interesting aspects to point is this initiative only required the agency of a concerned individual, who connected the initiative to different key actors, namely: two cross-scale brokers who helped him to get in touch with the formal management structure, an ornithologist who provided ecological knowledge, and the neighbourhood association which provided funding for the maintenance of the lake.
75 b) Chinnampahalli lake. The restoration of this lake was done under the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding between the company Siemens and the BBMP. According to this agreement, the BBMP was to take on the restoration and Siemens was to take over the maintenance of the lake after restoration work was finished. According to the Chief Engineer of the Lake Department in BBMP, Mr. Shakib, some time after the restoration, the company reported they were not any more interested in continuing the memorandum of understanding. This fact added to the many problems and public pressure against other public-private-partnership (PPP) agreements, supported the decision of the BBMP to cancel the agreement with Siemens. By this time, other co- managed lake experiences were presenting fruitful results, and this motivated the BBMP to approach different neighbourhood associations located near the lake to explore their interest in taking over an agreement with the BBMP, for the maintenance of the lake. An individual, Mr. Rajas, came forward expressing his interest on organizing around it, and latter gathered enough support for the creation of a group, which stepped forward, to take on the maintenance of the lake.
By the time the fieldwork of this research was done, the restoration was finished and the neighbour group, leaded by Mr. Rajas, which had existed for 3 months, had approached the BBMP and started informal cooperation activities. According to Mr. Rajas, the BBMP was, by that time, analysing the possibility to standardize the generation of co-management agreements in the whole Karnataka area, which was keeping their specific initiative on hold for formalization. It was not possible to interview other members of the new neighbourhood group.
As the cooperation management initiative between the BBMP and the organized neighbours association had existed for only a short period of time, it is not considered that this case can bring solid evidence on the process of a successful management transformation of the lake. But valuable insights are identified from the experience. See Table no. 7 in the main text. c) Uttarahalli lake. The initiative over the restoration and maintenance of this lake was taken over by the BBMP within a wider collaboration project with the non-profit organization United Way Bengaluru (see Table 7). According to Manvik, General Operations Manager for UWB, the specific collaboration project with BBMP aims to address the restoration of 14 lakes within a scheme where BBMP takes charge and finances the restoration, while UWB takes charge of financing the maintenance of the lake for a period of 4 years, during which they are to identify a local community organization or impulse the creation of one, who can take care of the maintenance of the lake initially in collaboration with UWB, and later on their own. By the time the fieldwork of
76 this research was done, the restoration was well advanced, but according to Manvik, the challenge of identifying and creating a local community organization to take care of the lake maintenance had proved quite difficult, and the repeated efforts of UWB to bring in different groups located around the lake, had rendered unfruitful so far. Michael referred to the socio-economical differences as the main impediment to organize a group, which could come together for the lake maintenance. During the fieldwork, I was able to identify and get in contact with a total of three individuals from the communities near Uttarahalli lake, who confirmed their involvement in the lake initiative. One of them, Mr. Maharth, a very optimistic enthusiast of the restoration of the lake, further confirmed the difficulties in bringing together a community group oriented to the lake restoration, although he could not confirm the reasons for that. The other two individuals were aware of some activities that had taken place in the lake for promoting the restoration, but had no deeper knowledge of the efforts of UWB in bringing together a community group for the lake management.
Manvik assured the intention of UWB is to continue supporting the management of Uttarahalli lake until they could find a local group interested in getting involved, but as this initiative did not have a defined scheme for how the co-management of the lake would continue in the future, it is reasonable to question the sustainability of the initiative. It is also not considered that this case can bring solid evidence on the process of a successful transformation process, but interesting insights can be drawn from this case study, regarding possible obstacles in transforming top-down governance structures. See Table no. 7 in the main text.
For a synthesis on the main findings and discussion points identified in the three complementary case studies, see Table 7.
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