Renegotiating Institutions: Institutional Bricolage in the Zambian Woodfuel Sector

Abstract: Governing multifunctional resource landscapes in ways that protect ecosystems without aggravating poverty is a critical task for development efforts. This thesis adopts an institutional bricolage approach to scrutinise institutional interplay in the Zambian woodfuel sector. Through a qualitative case study design, the study analyses how smallholder land users renegotiate formal and informal institutions to create new institutional arrangements. Moreover, it examines how such arrangements balance conflicting outcomes in the woodfuel sector. The study concludes that smallholder land users in Zambia occasionally integrate, alter or reject institutions, resulting in new arrangements steering their choices and behaviours. Contextual factors, including structure and agency, determine these processes. The study also suggests that institutional interplay has the potential to balance socioeconomic and environmental outcomes. The perceived interdependence of socioeconomic-environmental aspects and efforts to secure land access appear to have driven this process, where actors renegotiate institutions into new arrangements that balance conflicting outcomes. The conclusions imply that institutional interplay may be essential to consider when analysing and implementing sustainable resource governance – also in a multifunctional landscape.