Stakeholder dialogue for improving nature protection in agriculture : exploring communication dynamics through the lens of communicative rationality and symbolic interactionism

Abstract: To act against biodiversity loss in agriculture, participatory approaches involving farmers as co-designers of solutions are a possible solution to improve financial incentives on the EU level. However, not much research focuses on examining participatory processes, especially in the form of dialogue events. Thus, this study examined the dynamics of a dialogue event as part of the co-design project ECO2SCAPE. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of communicative rationality and symbolic interactionism, the research aimed to understand how the meaning of biodiversity conservation is interpreted during the dialogue and assessed the effectiveness of the dialogues in incorporating principles of communicative rationality in terms of openness, inclusivity, and equal participation. The study builds on one dialogue observation and six semi-structured phone interviews with participants of the observed dialogue event. The results showed that biodiversity protection symbolises for farmers a trade-off between conservation efforts and economic viability as well as farmers are burdened and demotivated by their societal image as environmental villains. In addition, the participants of the event actively engaged with each other in the dialogue to reach mutual understanding and common ground. Some aspects of the dialogue did not fully comply with the principles of communicative rationality, but were intentional, particularly empowering farmers to contribute to the discussion. From the results, it can be recommended that dialogues must provide positive results to challenge the notion of farmers as environmental villains, guarantee comprehensibility and build learning opportunities, and strengthen trust and collaboration among the participating stakeholders. In the end, these findings contribute to the field by providing insights into the dynamics of communication, the influence of identity on decision-making, and the importance of creating inclusive and transparent dialogue processes.