Incorporating local, and placed-based knowledge in resource management: An anthropological study of coral reef entanglements in Costa Rica

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to better understand how different local actors in Arenas1 on the Talamancan coast in Costa Rica can work together and contribute to forms of more sustainable resource management. The study shows that local actors understand sustainable development as the restoration of relationships to the coral reefs. It is shown that the issue of coral reef restoration can be linked to a larger discourse of knowledge, in particular regarding what kinds of knowledge projects are based on, and who receives credit from those projects. However, the possibilities to influence and change current practices are experienced as limited, and greater governmentality support is needed in sustainable resource management and coral reef protection. Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with locally based organizations, the thesis shows that these organizations can act as a vehicle to understand, capture and transmit local knowledge and practice in terms of resource management, as well as for enhancing understandings of human-environmental relationships connected to the specific socio-ecological patterns in Arenas. An anthropological approach is being used, through the frameworks of human-environmental relations and governmentality, arguing that local, and place-based knowledge is critical for resource management strategies.