*3.2. Method*

Our method for analysing the case studies is based on a case study design using a realist qualitative approach to analysis, which recognises the role of context in causal explanations about phenomena [63]. We took an iterative, step-wise approach to analysis, using the three gardening tools (*relational expertise*, *common knowledge* and *relational agency*) as an analytical framework to look at our cases from a different perspective. The authorship team, composed of researchers and practitioners involved in the two cases, conducted the analysis together over a series of workshop sessions, and iterative development of the manuscript. We took the following steps in the analysis:



**Table 2.** Key findings from case analysis using the gardening tools framework (see Table 1 for definitions of gardening tool concepts).

**Table 2.** *Cont*.


#### **4. Case Studies: Applying the Gardening Tools to Analyse the Langkloof and Tsitsa Cases**

#### *4.1. Overview of Cases*

The two cases were chosen as examples of landscape stewardship in which multi-actor collaboration is an intended purpose of the initiative, ye<sup>t</sup> participants are finding collaboration challenging [17,31] (Box 1 and 2). We present the cases by giving an outline of the social-ecological context of each case and its objectives, and by providing a specific focus around a shared matter of interest or 'object of activity' ('Object of activity' is a term used in Cultural Historical Activity Theory, which underpins Edwards' work on the gardening tools [55], to denote the complex problem which is the focus of collaboration [56].) around which actors are actively collaborating within each case (Box 1 and 2) (Note: 'Object of activity' is a term used in Cultural Historical Activity Theory, which underpins Edwards' work on the gardening tools [55], to denote the complex problem which is the focus of collaboration [56]). In the case descriptions, we also identify the key actors involved in the collaboration, and specific boundary-crossing challenges experienced.

4.1.1. Case 1: The Langkloof Region: Building Capacity and Collaboration for Integrated Landscape Management through Sustainable Honeybush Tea Cultivation

•What is the social-ecological context of the landscape stewardship initiative?

The Langkloof is situated in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It is an agricultural area which mostly consists of commercial fruit production [64]. The landscape is socially and ecologically heterogeneous, with high diversity in terms of the economic, socio-cultural, and political background of people living in the landscape (Figure 2) [17]. Social groups are dynamic and diverse in ethnicity. There is contestation around access to land and water resources among historically disparate groups, i.e., 'white' commercial farmers and 'coloured' people whose ancestors were dispossessed of land [17]. The area has high biodiversity with many endemic species. The case presented here is based on the work of a local not-for-profit company, Living Lands, who facilitate collaborative landscape stewardship activities across the landscape [17,65,66].

**Figure 2.** Left: The Langkloof or "long valley" with its fynbos-covered mountains and apple orchards in the valley bottom. Right: Honeybush Working Group meeting where a diverse group of stakeholders gathered to learn about soil health in a field of cultivated honeybush.

•What is the shared matter of interest or 'object of activity' on which this study focuses?

Whilst Living Lands is involved in various landscape restoration and sustainable agriculture activities, the focus of this study is on sustainable cultivation of honeybush tea. Growing wild in the mountains, indigenous honeybush (*Cyclopia* spp.) is both wild harvested and cultivated on a small scale to produce herbal tea. This is an emerging industry, with increasing demand for honeybush such that current wild populations cannot satisfy this demand [67]. Cultivation of honeybush is seen as a possible solution to create sustainability in the industry (and much-needed employment), however knowledge of this undomesticated plant is scarce [67]. Living Lands has set up an informal working group ('honeybush cultivation working group') to support farmers and others in the industry by

providing a platform to share knowledge and build social capital. The working group o ffers a space for multiple diverse actors to come together around honeybush cultivation as a shared matter of interest and thus 'boundary crossing' is taking place within the working group.

• Who are the actors involved?

Living Lands act as the facilitator of the working group. With many connections across the industry, Living Lands has the ability to bring diverse groups of people together and broaden and deepen knowledge-sharing. Researchers are involved in the group and contribute by creating knowledge about the resource itself, and about the social systems linked with the resource and industry. Expert consultants in specific aspects of cultivation, such as soil experts or cuttings experts, are invited to share their knowledge with the working group. Technical knowledge about the cultivation of the plant is contributed by farmers and honeybush seedling nursery managers, who are also part of the cultivation group. Farmers have been encouraged to bring their farm workers along. It is important to note that the nursery managers (supported in this new work by Living Lands) were themselves previously farm workers. Their involvement in this new job and in the working group has been a shift in their identity and role in this community.

• What are the boundary-crossing challenges and opportunities?

The working group o ffers a platform for people from diverse knowledge systems to share knowledge and experience on honeybush cultivation, providing opportunities for social learning. During workshops, di fferent methods for cultivation are trialed and knowledge is co-produced through activities undertaken together by the members of the group. This group was created around the common challenge of successful honeybush cultivation. Through this common challenge, members identify with each other to develop a shared sense of purpose. This group contributes to building relationships across the industry and trust-building between di fferent levels of trade, which is crucial for upscaling in the future. A shared sense of responsibility in the group reduces the fear of failure at an individual level and builds confidence. However, di fferences in class, race/ethnicity, education, socio-economic status, and language pose significant challenges to the aspirations of the group.

4.1.2. Case 2: The Tsitsa River Catchment: Striving for Sustainable Landscape Management and Rural Livelihoods Development through Integrated Planning

•What is the social-ecological context of the landscape stewardship initiative?

This case is situated in Tsitsa River catchment, a tributary of uMzimvubu River, in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. The catchment is located in one of the poorest, most ecologically degraded, and least developed regions of the country: the former Transkei homeland (Figure 3) [68]. Residents of the communally-governed areas rely on subsistence farming and grazing, natural resource use, and governmen<sup>t</sup> social grants for their livelihoods, while commercial farming is carried out in the freehold area [68]. The case is based on the work of the Tsitsa Project (TP). The TP is a science-based social-ecological land restoration and livelihoods development programme which seeks to foster multi-actor collaboration and polycentric governance [31]. It is funded by the Department of Environment, Forestry, and Fisheries (DEFF). The project was initiated to reduce sedimentation of two large dams proposed for the uMzimvubu River, but has now shifted to a more holistic focus on managing the landscape for a variety of social-ecological outcomes, including local livelihoods.

•What is the shared matter of interest or 'object of activity' on which this study focuses?

Key matters of shared interest in the Tsitsa Project (TP) include: polycentric governance, integrated planning for landscape restoration, grazing management, and landscape sustainability for livelihoods. In this case we will focus primarily on integrated planning for landscape restoration as a shared matter of interest around which multi-actor collaboration and boundary crossing is taking place. Integrated planning was seen as the best opportunity for researchers, managers, implementers, and communities to collaborate towards sustainable landscapes and livelihoods.

**Figure 3.** Left: The Tsitsa Project located in a highly erodible, degraded landscape in which local people are reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods. Right: Participatory mapping of priority areas for restoration to inform integrated landscape planning has been a key boundary-crossing activity facilitated by the Tsitsa Project.

• Who are the actors involved?

Researchers from Rhodes University coordinate the project. There are many actors in the Tsitsa River catchment involved in various activities related to integrated planning include local residents, Traditional Leaders, governmen<sup>t</sup> officials, scientists, natural resource managers, restoration implementing agents, development agencies, etc. The areas of influence of the various actors overlap to some extent, leading to synergies and tensions [31]. Over time, the TP has been bringing the various actors into shared spaces to develop a common vision and align activities to avoid further tension and duplication, and to share resources and knowledge. Integrated planning meetings and participatory mapping activities with local residents and Traditional Leaders [69] have been a key focus of this work.

• What are the boundary-crossing challenges and opportunities?

Integrated planning requires people with different skills, experiences and levels of education to work together and plan collectively. While this is a significant opportunity to manage the landscape for sustainable and equitable outcomes, it is also fraught with challenges. The work of the TP is characterised by the intersection of different sources and types of knowledge, including local ecological knowledge based on lived experience as well as scientific knowledge based on global literature, models, remote sensing, and statistics. The project is also characterised by intersections of different languages: actors speak isiXhosa, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English, which leads to difficulties in effective communication and relationship building. Land tenure differences are also a boundary-spanning challenge: there is both communal and freehold land.

#### *4.2. Key Findings from the Case Analysis Using the Gardening Tools Framework*

We now apply the three gardening tools to the two cases of landscape stewardship in the Eastern Cape of South Africa: the Tsitsa River catchment and the Langkloof Region. We begin by sharing insights from each of the cases on the gardening tools, including key points summarised in Table 2. In Section 5, we then go on to discuss some key cross-cutting findings in relation to the literature to propose a new perspective on multi-actor collaboration for landscape stewardship.

#### 4.2.1. Case 1: Langkloof Region

To apply the gardening tools to the honeybush cultivation working group ('working group'), it is crucial to understand the current relationship dynamics in the region. A long history of discrimination in the area as a result of South Africa's colonial and Apartheid history has caused fragmentation of social groups and an unequal balance of power and access to resources [17,70]. Unequal power relations come about through unequal representation and recognition of people from different ethnic or race groups, economics class, age, and level of education within the working group [17]. Relationships between people are therefore in different stages: members from the same ethnic group and similar levels of power develop relationships faster than across ethnic groups and levels of power. The same

applies to the manner in which the boundary-crossing dimensions (i.e., relational expertise, common knowledge, relational agency) are realised within the group.

When we look at the process and nature of relationships during the development of the working group, evidence of the three boundary-crossing dimensions can be recognised in di fferent pockets or sub-groups of 2–3 people within the group over time. During workshops, for instance, working group members visit each other's farms. For individual farmers (from the same ethnic group), this experience creates recognition of their own knowledge, place and situation within the broader system of other farmers. This leads to the augmentation of the specialist knowledge for each farmer, even though it is limited to one type of actor in the group. Before the working group was established, farmers did not realise that they have any knowledge to share, but during this process, they recognised that they have built their own specialist knowledge through experience and that it is useful knowledge for the working group as a whole. However, this same acknowledgement of knowledge is not necessarily extended to more marginalised members of the working group, i.e., the nursery managers and farm workers (Table 2).

The building of *relational expertise* is a slow process with many steps. The nursery managers, for instance, are younger and from di fferent ethnic groups and economic classes than most of the other group members. At the first workshop, they arrived in workers' clothing and took on the role of manual labourers, rather than equal contributors of knowledge and expertise. Within the next few workshops, progression could be seen in the way they dressed (wearing more formal 'meeting clothes') and contributed to the workshop, each time with a little more recognition of their role and contribution of their knowledge to discussions. Initially, they would sit aside from the main group, and as things have progressed, they have become more comfortable sitting 'at the table' with the main group. These actors are, however, still marginalised and have not entirely found their voice within the group in terms of building common knowledge. As people who themselves, and whose families (historically), have engaged in honeybush farming activities, they have important practical and local knowledge to contribute, but their identity as 'workers', and the way they are marginalised, makes the bringing in of this knowledge to form 'common knowledge' a significant boundary-crossing challenge.

Some of the consultants who joined the group had a well-established sense of their own expertise, but did not realise that they would learn from others in the group. For instance, one consultant noted that he learned a lot from the farmers' practical knowledge, which greatly contributed to the theoretical knowledge he had built over the years.

*Common knowledge* has developed within the group around the common goal, which is to successfully grow honeybush and find a consistent market for high-quality honeybush. Everyone, therefore, has a shared interest to combine e fforts and experience to achieve this goal. This common knowledge, however, is still very superficial and finer nuances with regards to a shared appreciation and understanding of each member's motivation for joining the group is still lacking.

The development of *relational agency* has also been limited to ethnicity and power level. In practice, farmers, researchers, and 'Living Landers' are trialling cultivation methods together, and this shows potential for the development of relational agency. Pockets of relational agency can be recognised when looking at a larger time frame which includes the process of relationship-building before the working group was set up, as well as after it was established.

#### 4.2.2. Case 2: Tsitsa River Catchment

The Tsitsa Project was introduced as a top-down project that focussed on multi-actor collaboration as an outcome, with limited focus in the early stages on a process-oriented approach to building relational expertise and common knowledge needed to realise this. The latter approach developed over the years in response to the reduced focus on reducing siltation of the proposed dam, and a shift to improved overall catchment managemen<sup>t</sup> to support local livelihoods [31]. Now, 5 years after the start of the project, with an enhanced research presence in the catchment, we are starting to see some evidence of relational expertise and common knowledge, and are in a better position to use these gardening tools more e ffectively to analyse and guide the collaboration. Central to this is trust-building, frequent interactions with actors (often in informal settings), and planning and working together to achieve goals that all actors feel comfortable with. The legacy of apartheid and colonialism has contributed to slowing this relational development as there are significant social and power di fferentials between and among actors associated with ethnicity/race, class, language, culture, knowledge system, land tenure, etc. [31].

Evidence of*relational expertise* can be seen in the Tsitsa Project in at least two examples of researchers engaging with other actors. Firstly, in the way in which researchers and restoration implementers are collectively expanding their understanding of the common problem or 'object of activity' of land restoration and integrated planning. The implementers (Gamtoos Irrigation Board, GIB), sugges<sup>t</sup> restoration interventions, these are agreed upon by the Traditional Leaders, and then submitted to researchers. The researchers then sugges<sup>t</sup> if those interventions are suitable for the relevant areas based on their scientific understanding, type of soils and other biophysical features of the landscape. After suggestions from researchers, GIB revise their plan and submit it to the DEFF for final approval before they commence implementing restoration. In a second example, researchers have employed participatory mapping processes to collect and collate knowledge from the local catchment residents about their restoration priorities to guide planning and research by getting a better understanding of the local context [69]. This has not been without its challenges: disparate literacy levels, and language and cultural barriers created di fficulties for ensuring participants understood the risks of their involvement, recognised their rights (particularly important in the context of historic land rights concerns in South Africa), and felt empowered by the process [69]. In these two examples, relational expertise is emerging as actors recognise the value of other actors' perspective, knowledge and skills for expanding their understanding of the problem. Engaging catchment residents and Traditional Leaders in their home language (isiXhosa), creating space for local cultural practices in meeting spaces (e.g., praying at the start of a meeting), and taking time to ge<sup>t</sup> to know them outside of the formal meeting spaces, have been key enablers of the emergence of relational agency.

Integrated restoration and planning for landscape stewardship is only possible through the development of *common knowledge* as implementers, local residents, Traditional Leaders, and researchers start to understand each other's di fferent personal and professional motives. It also requires the facilitating researchers starting to mediate the collaborative process by transferring, translating, and transforming knowledges across di fferences [58]. This building of common knowledge is evidence of the Tsitsa Project starting to work explicitly according to one of its core principles, namely transdisciplinarity [31]: i.e., an openness to working with diverse knowledges to co-produce new knowledge, which includes recognising that local communities have more knowledge than outsiders (i.e., the facilitating researchers) about the catchment, and they are recognised as experts in the catchment.

*Relational agency* is becoming evident in the core activities of prioritising, mapping, and planning, i.e., in the integrated planning for landscape restoration. The making of maps, and the making of decisions, are ways in which actors are starting to 'do together', i.e., they are starting to build a collective strategy (Table 1). Applying the gardening tools to the Tsitsa River catchment case has shown that more time needs to be allocated in the early stages of such an initiative for actors to listen to each other, for facilitators to ge<sup>t</sup> to know the situation and the actors and their perspectives, i.e., to build relational expertise and common knowledge as a foundation for relational agency.

#### **5. Discussion: Cross-Cutting Insights and a New Perspective for Multi-Actor Collaboration in Landscape Stewardship Initiatives**

#### *5.1. Cross-Cutting Insights on Relationality: What the Gardening Tools Reveal about Boudary-Crossing Work for Landscape Stewardship*

From our analysis of these two cases of landscape stewardship, we have learnt that history and context influence relational processes significantly; that due to these influences (and also others) the

#### *Land* **2020**, *9*, 224

boundary-crossing work is difficult; and that focusing on working in smaller, focused pockets within a large-scale landscape initiative is helpful. Below we further unpack these three insights.


However, even within these pockets, explicit recognition and careful mediation and facilitation of traditionally marginalised voices and knowledge holders is necessary to strongly build relational agency and common knowledge. This takes time and skillful facilitation, to enable actors to work around expanding their shared understanding of an object of activity to build common knowledge [56] (e.g., around honeybush cultivation in the Langkloof, and around participatory mapping and integrated planning in the Tsitsa). We find then, as also discussed by others, that careful design, management, and facilitation of boundary spaces is crucial. However we also ask ourselves, how enduring the role of facilitating organisations (such as Living Lands and Rhodes University) should or could be in landscape stewardship initiatives? Should the level of facilitation and mediation perhaps change over time?

In both our cases, smaller pockets of multi-actor collaboration have shown how the building of common knowledge can mediate the development of relational agency. However, without respectful acknowledgement of differences among actors, i.e., where actors are willing to 'see' the other and what they can offer in a process of relational expertise, the common knowledge cannot be built. For example, in the Langkloof case, through careful constitution and facilitation of the working group, the knowledge of the farm workers was brought to the fore. This has shown that they have something to offer, which has brought them closer to crossing the boundaries created by historical differences between them and the farmers and consultants. Bringing them in has also enabled the different actors to ge<sup>t</sup> to know each other in a professional space, which is an important enabler of collaboration [58].

#### *5.2. Towards New Perspectives for Multi-Actor Collaboration: A Relational Approach Suggests Three Social-Relational Practices*

The literature on collaboration for stewardship and natural resource managemen<sup>t</sup> historically has a strong focus on the practices of designing and building institutions to enable collaboration among actors [9,38]. There are however growing calls for a more relational understanding of the social processes and ties involved in multi-actor collaboration [9,48,53], or the 'stuff' of relational ties as Lejano [24] calls it. Here, we respond to these calls and offer a new perspective on multi-actor collaboration based on a relational approach.

In light of our findings, and drawing on the literature on relationality, we propose three social-relational practices which could support more effective and meaningful multi-actor collaboration. They are as follows:


sites of tension and di fficulty among diverse actors). The di fferences between people also call for an empathetic approach in which people try to 'walk in each other's shoes' despite their di fferences. Paying attention to the a ffective or emotional dimensions of social-relational processes is critical, as without it we ignore the most basic of human characteristics [24,53]. Thus, while learning-by-doing and adapting together are widely recognized as important social processes and practices in SES research [7,11], and their relevance is apparent in our cases as well, doing so with an attitude of humility and empathy for the other is less frequently recommended. In order to develop relational expertise, those actors whose knowledge is conventionally considered superior (e.g., scientists or consultants) must be able to humble themselves in light of other forms of knowledge helped by more marginalised actors (e.g., local knowledge, experiential knowledge). The necessity of a position of humility by scientists is recognized in complexity approaches to SES research [33], and should be adopted by scientists engaged in boundary-crossing spaces to enable social learning and the development of common knowledge. Finally, in order to truly 'see the other' as is necessary for developing relational expertise, building common knowledge, and activating relational agency, it is necessary for actors to approach one another with empathy, i.e., to imagine walking in the others' shoes, and to seek to understand their background and perspective [58].

## *5.3. Policy Implications*

The research insights and social-relational practices we discuss above have at least two significant implications for policy on landscape stewardship. Firstly, our findings indicate that collaboration among diverse stakeholders is a slow process which needs to be resourced e ffectively, and for which the relevant skills need to be built. In order to reach the ideals of landscape stewardship, i.e., to integrate research, planning, policy, and practice towards more sustainable and equitable outcomes, governments and other funders need to invest in social-relational processes and capacity building for collaboration—not only in practical and technical solutions, as is often the case, in stewardship work [16]. Secondly, context-specific landscape stewardship approaches need to be supported, rather than imposing top-down blueprints imported from elsewhere. Far too often, policy drives 'one-size-fits-all' solutions for landscape stewardship [4], ignoring local dynamics such as history, power relations, and social diversity, which we have shown to have such a strong influence on collaborative stewardship processes.
