MGTS7976 Assessment 2: Essay on an engagement topic Word limit: 2000 words not including references

Research and write an es.y on a topic about stakeholder engagement issues and concepts. Choose one frorn the list of four below.

1. Trust: Natural resource rnanagement and agriculture are strongly characterized by negotiation between actors over available resources and preferable futures. In these negotiations trust plays a vital role. Successful engagement requires that all stakeholders trust the process and feel committed to accept the outcome. This is partly a question of a strong awareness of interdepencience, but also a question of feeling safe, of trusting the process. What is trust? How can you recognize it during engagement processes? Is trust a condition for engagement or is it an outcome of engagement? How do you build trust with stakeholders or facilitate trust in interactive processes?

2. Dialogue: Problems in agriculture and natural resource management are complex because they involve many parties with various interests, ideas and solutions. The success of a stakeholder engagement initiative depends, in part, on the ability to foster open, honest dialogue.. tend to speak easily about dialogue. ‘Let’s talk about this’: that is often what we .y. However in practice, communication is often part of the problem. Can it also be part of the solution? What is a dialogue and why have one? What makes it so hard to have a genuine dialogue? Is there any evicience that dialogues work? Are there alternatives? What are some of the strategies to promote meaningful dialogue?

3. Power: One of the challenges in engagement is dealing with unequal power relations. In actual fact, engagement processes often cio not lead to the desired outcomes. The compromises reached turn out to be unsustainable in the long run because existing institutions (e.g., countries, ministry departments, states, councils, institutional land owners) are reluctant to give up their power. How can we define and recognize power in engagement processes? How can we deal with a powerful elite within a count, or a community which does not want to g p their power? How can we “re-engage” stakeholders that are disengaged or is it unethical to even t, to do this?

4. A topic of your own choice. Please feel free to develop a topic that you would like to explore in the es.y. Please contact Severine van Bommel first, before you begin a topic of your own choice.

Having chosen your topic, discuss it, using literature. The topic choices will not require you to provide definite answers but rather explore and discuss the topic and its implications. We particularly encourage a ‘critical’ approach, showing your ability to icientify and assess the quality of literature that you have located. How cioes the author’s frame of the problem? What are the presuppositions underlying the framing of the problem by the author? What sort of evidence is the author providing to support their argument and what is the quality of this evidence? What are the consequences of this framing? We encourage you to read widely, and find your own sources using keywords. Reference MUST be made to all work that is not your own. U. Harvard Garton (see UQ website) for your referencing.

Remember: choose only one topic.

DO NOT ANSWER the specific questions in the es.y topic. These are given to describe the general es.y topic and guide your thinking. You may shape the general topic as you wish.