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Abstract:
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"Accounts of complex multi-party cooperation in some social sciences focus on the political and structural dimensions, neglecting human relational and cultural aspects of cooperation. Conversely, anthropological analyses which focus on the latter aspects often minimize the former. Overall, few researchers consider the dynamics of actors shifting among multiple strategies to achieve cooperation. We provide a more integrated account by analyzing the full range of strategies used by two sets of actors in two different basins in Washington State, who were planning cooperatively to diminish the cumulative basin-wide impacts of logging on fish habitat. We analyze all the strategies used by tribal, government, and timber company actors, as well as how these actors shifted among and combined strategies to achieve success. A comparison of the strategies used in a 'locally-oriented' watershed with those used in a 'cosmopolitan' watershed, reveal key differences in their local effectiveness and in their ability to 'scale up' outside the local area. Finally, we generate hypotheses identifying the social, political, and ecological conditions which enabled these strategies to be used. Both the analysis and the hypotheses contribute to refining the theory of complex cooperation, especially as developed in the study of common pool resource governance and co-management. In developing an integrated analysis, we demonstrate the unique theoretical and methodological contribution of anthropology to the study of complex cooperation, and how anthropology can be integrated and balanced with other social science analysis in this area."
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