**1. Introduction**

Landscape stewardship is gaining increasing traction as a way of bringing together a range of practices such as natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, ecological restoration, climate change adaptation, and sustainable agriculture and livelihoods [1–3]. Taking a landscape-level approach to this basket of interconnected sustainability practices is seen as a means of integrating research, planning, policy, and practice towards more sustainable and equitable outcomes for the variety of actors interested in the landscape [2,4].

In parallel to these shifts towards more integrated approaches for working in landscapes, we see a growing interest in social-ecological systems (SES) approaches in the field of sustainability science [5,6]. SES approaches advocate for a more holistic, integrated understanding of how humans and nature interconnect, and call for more adaptive and learning-oriented approaches to thinking about and strengthening this connectivity in order to build resilience [7]. Resilience thinking and SES approaches have now also begun to inform landscape stewardship [8], leading to an increasing appreciation that landscape stewardship practices are embedded in social-ecological systems [9].

With this comes a growing focus on understanding not only the ecological but also the social dimensions of landscape stewardship [10] and the related fields of practice outlined above [11–14]. For the purposes of this paper, we draw on literature across the 'sister fields' of natural resource management, biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration, and on sustainability science more broadly, as they share a similar set of antecedent framings and place-based approaches. Moreover, they are often seen as integral components or practices within more broadly conceptualised landscape stewardship approaches [15]. Out of this growing body of conceptual and empirical work on the social dimensions of landscape stewardship has emerged a focus on relationality [16–18], that is, we are seeing a relational turn [19,20]. This has been accompanied by a rapid growth in literature on relationality in related fields like conservation [21] and sustainability science [18,22].

The purpose of this paper is to contribute a novel perspective on multi-actor collaboration for landscape stewardship through developing a relational approach, both conceptually and empirically. We do this through addressing four objectives, according to which we have structured the paper. Firstly, we begin by unpacking 'a relational approach to landscape stewardship': we consider what it is, why it matters, and what it means i.e., the implications of taking a relational approach. Secondly, we propose a set of tools from research in education and organisational learning. These tools form a framework that enables a more nuanced, relational analysis of the social relations between the many actors involved in collaborative landscape stewardship. Thirdly, we apply these tools to initiatives in two regions in the Eastern Cape of South Africa: the Langkloof region and the Tsitsa River catchment. We use an analysis of these cases to demonstrate the value of the tools in supporting research, learning and practice in landscape stewardship initiatives. Fourthly, building on the case analysis, we develop a new perspective on multi-actor collaboration.

#### **2. A Relational Approach to Landscape Stewardship: What Is It, Why Does It Matter, and What Does It Mean to Take Such an Approach?**

#### *2.1. What Is a Relational Approach to Landscape Stewardship?*

Relationality is a key feature of SES [23–25]. This means that systems are relationally constituted, i.e., they are what they are by virtue of the multiple, dynamic relations or interconnections which link the elements of a system together. In other words, the nature and functioning of SES are strongly shaped by the nature of the web of relationships in that system. This is not to say the nature of the elements is not relevant, but rather that the system emerges out of both the elements and the relations among them [25]. These relationships are between all kinds of elements of the system, e.g., human-to-nature, nature-to-nature, human-to-human, human-to-nature-to-nature, and so on, forming a web of relations (Figure 1). By foregrounding relationships, we can gain a better understanding of the "rich ground of practice that guides a system in ways that the formal rational designs do not explain" [24] (p. 1).

**Figure 1.** Social-ecological systems are relationally constituted [24,25] i.e., the web of multiple, dynamic relations between the various elements of the system make the system what it is at each given time.

The notion of stewardship, core to landscape stewardship practices, has been identified as a particular form of human-nature relationship, whereby humans interact with and use nature with responsibility and care [16,26]. Landscape stewardship requires the collective stewarding of large, multifunctional landscapes [9,27]. This necessitates the working together of a wide range of actors, often referred to as stakeholders, in order to share the costs and benefits of stewarding the landscape and its natural resources. The term stakeholder positions persons or groups as bystanders with a stake in someone else's initiative, while the term actor positions them as individuals or groups with agency or their own initiative. In the cases shared here, and we would argue, ideally in all stewardship initiatives, researchers and development practitioners should relate to farmers, villagers, extensionists, government, industry and other roleplayers in the landscape as actors, in recognition of the way in which their decisions and (in)actions shape what happens in the catchment. Consequently, within such landscapes there are not only multiple human-nature relationships, but also multiple human-human relationships which operate across multiple scales and which hold memory, therefore making relational landscape approaches important [16,19]. The following are a few practical examples of these multiple and intersecting relations in landscapes, each of which is embedded in an on-going, dynamic, relational process:


These examples not only illustrate that to bring about effective, sustainable, and equitable landscape stewardship requires then not only the development of more sustainable human-nature relationships [19], but also a focus on understanding and supporting the interactions of multiple human actors across the landscape [16] which would in turn impact interactions with land. In this paper we focus on the latter, paying attention to multi-actor collaboration as a key form of relationality in landscapes.

By virtue of the kinds of sustainability challenges that emerge in the pursuit of landscape stewardship (e.g., catchment managemen<sup>t</sup> or fire management), multi-actor collaboration often results in the formation of networks of people from diverse backgrounds who have not worked together before [28,29]. Landscape stewardship initiatives bring together for example farmers, livestock owners, governmen<sup>t</sup> o fficials, researchers, and NGOs who all play di fferent roles in the landscape. While these actors all potentially share an interest in the landscape as a whole, each has di fferent interests in the system, and comes with di ffering backgrounds, values, expertise, knowledge, and cultural practices. These actors are also located within a particular historical context of the landscape [17]. This means that collaborating for landscape stewardship is boundary-crossing work [30], whereby the di fferent actors need to acknowledge the relevance of working outside of their usual domain (e.g., a farmer managing his farm, or a researcher working in the university) to work together to steward the landscape.

#### *2.2. Why Take a Relational Approach?*

Our motivation for proposing a relational approach to landscape stewardship emerges both from practical, empirical experiences of place-based landscape studies (see for example Cockburn et al. [16], Cockburn et al. [31], Pollard et al. [32], Palmer et al. [33], and Shackleton et al. [34]), and from the philosophical orientations which underpin our approach to landscape stewardship. The practical, empirical experiences speak to *relational practices*, whilst the philosophical orientations speak to *relational ontology and epistemology*. We discuss each of these in turn below to make the case for a relational approach from both perspectives, and then unpack the implications of a *relational approach*—which is a bringing together of *relational practices* and *relational ontology and epistemology*—for landscape stewardship and sustainability science more broadly [25,35].

#### 2.2.1. Making the Case for Relational Practices: Practical and Empirical Insights

At a practical, everyday level, we can see that it is important to have interpersonal relationships with others to enable collaboration and collective action, i.e., that humans are fundamentally relational beings, and that society is relationally constituted [36]. People's engagements with the world and with each other is shared, overlapping, and relational [37]. For example, small-scale farmers often collaborate and form co-operatives to share agricultural input costs and access markets for their produce. Similarly, the collaborative managemen<sup>t</sup> of shared natural resources in landscapes is an ancient practice, and is well-documented and researched for example in Ostrom's Nobel-Prize winning research on common pool resource managemen<sup>t</sup> [38]. In large, multifunctional landscapes characterised by a diversity of intersecting ecosystems and natural resources, and a diversity of actors and institutions with often conflicting interests in the landscape, collaboration becomes more di fficult [9]. The web of relations becomes more complex, and understanding and navigating the social-relational dynamics among diverse actors becomes even more important [16,39], highlighting the need for relational approaches in landscape stewardship.

#### 2.2.2. Making the Case for Relational Ontology and Epistemology: Philosophical Arguments

The above discussion draws on practical knowledge to make the case for relational practices, which might be particularly resonant and relevant for on-the-ground practitioners and landscape residents. However, as researchers (particularly those pursuing transdisciplinary modes of research [40]), we also have a responsibility to consider the philosophical underpinnings of our research and how these influence how we view the world, i.e., ontology, and how we generate knowledge in, of, and with the world, i.e., epistemology [41,42]. In this study, our overarching ontological position is a view of the world as an open, multi-layered, complex system. We draw on complexity theory [25,43] to underpin this. We have argued above that landscape stewardship is embedded in SES. SES are considered as complex adaptive systems [5,23]. A complexity ontology has important implications for epistemology, methodology, and everyday practice, as argued by Preiser [25] (p. 711):

"As much as complexity thinking provides us with tools and models for observing and analysing the interactions and e ffects of complex systems, it also provides a worldview into the nature of complexity and how it is experienced in our everyday encounters of living in an ever-changing world. Complex systems thinking challenges commonly held assumptions about the nature of a problem and conventional solutions that are based on control and demand-based planning and decision making approaches and anticipates surprises and accepts that there are no quick fixes for solving complex real world problems."

Consequently, relationality is an important lens through which to study or know (epistemology) the world more deeply, and to be (ontology) or act in it more coherently [44]. Relationality gives us praxiological power: to understand people and nature and practice in context and in relation with one another [24], and to work with people with an openness to change i.e., through a transformative perspective.

#### *2.3. What Does It Mean to Take a Relational Approach in Landscape Stewardship and Sustainability Science?*

So, what does it mean to take a relational approach to landscape stewardship specifically, and to sustainability science more broadly? Here we identify at least three implications of such a relational approach.

Firstly, taking a relational approach means doing research di fferently, i.e., understanding things in a more interconnected way, and ensuring that not only the elements of the system are studied and interrogated, but also the relations within a system. It also means seeking relationality within and among disciplines and supporting and conducting interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research [35,45].

Secondly, it means engaging, intervening, and acting di fferently, i.e., it is often when there is a breakdown in the relations between things that problems arise, and so we need a relational lens to see these absences and 'absent the absences' [44,45]. This gives a fundamental, causal property to relationships [24], and can help us better understand the way we can intervene and work with actors to address issues within the context of landscape stewardship, social-ecological systems, and beyond.

Thirdly, it means working in more nuanced and relational ways with widely-cited notions such as multi-stakeholder or multi-actor collaboration. This means going beyond the conventional focus on elements such as institutions [46], or individuals (e.g., studying individual values or behaviour is often the focus of social science research in conservation [47]), to understanding the relationality at play in collaborative processes, and how this is deeply situated in complex SES [9,16,24,48]. A relational approach also enables one to see beyond a certain space and time and reveals a cross-scale picture of historical and future relationships [25,49].

For the remainder of this paper, we focus on this last implication of a relational approach to landscape stewardship, exploring theory developed in the field of education and organisational learning research to deepen our understanding of relationality in multi-actor collaboration for landscape stewardship.

#### **3. Framing and Methods for Case Study Analysis: Analysing Relational Cross-Boundary Work**

#### *3.1. Introduction to the Gardening Tools*

Whilst there is a burgeoning of social science research within the fields of landscape stewardship and sister fields in sustainability science and SES research [10,47,49–52], there have also been critiques of the superficial way in which 'social' or 'human' dimensions have sometimes been treated in these fields [20,24,48,53,54]. We seek to respond to some of these critiques by bringing theory from social science fields, in this case education and organisational learning research, into sustainability science and SES research to strengthen our understanding of some of the social-relational dimensions of the work (Table 1).

In studying boundary-crossing collaborations, Edwards [30,55,56] has identified a set of conceptual tools to guide analysis of collaborative processes, which she calls 'gardening tools'. Edwards explains the gardening tools metaphor as follows: "The metaphor reflects the comment from two Norwegian researchers in the field of public management, that horizontal working between agencies needs ' ... cooperative e ffort and cannot be easily imposed from the top down' so that 'the role of a successful

reform agen<sup>t</sup> is to operate more as a gardener than as engineer or architect' [57] (p. 1063). This metaphor applies equally to the multi-actor work of collaborating for landscape stewardship, where actors are cultivating new ways of working, new practices, and new relationships [16], just as gardeners cultivate gardens.

We use the gardening tools both for analytical purposes, and to support planning and facilitation of landscape stewardship practices. These tools comprise three key concepts: relational expertise, relational agency, and common knowledge (Table 1), which are three specific dimensions of boundary-crossing.

These three concepts have been developed by Anne Edwards and colleagues to support research in a variety of boundary-crossing contexts of professional practice, as she says we "need to examine in some detail how collaboration is nurtured in these spaces" [56] (p. 35). Examples of these contexts include: social workers, parents, and teachers collaborating to support children struggling with social exclusion [30]; early childhood educators, maternal and child healthcare workers, and after-care providers collaborating in early years multidisciplinary networks [58]; and nurses, psychologists, and social workers collaborating to support new parents experiencing difficulties in adjusting to parenting [59]. To our knowledge, these conceptual or framing tools have not ye<sup>t</sup> been applied in an SES context. In Table 1, we provide definitions of the tools used by Edwards, and re-worked definitions for the landscape stewardship contexts we studied.


**Table 1.** The 'gardening tools' to support the boundary-crossing work of multi-actor collaboration in landscape stewardship, based on Edwards [60,61].
