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Art Dewulf (1975) studied Organizational Psychology (Master’s degree in 1999) and Social and Cultural Anthropology (Master’s degree in 1998) at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He received his Ph.D. in organizational psychology in February 2006 at the same university, with a dissertation entitled “Issue framing in multi-actor contexts” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. René Bouwen. After a year of interim lectureship and post-doc research at the University of Leuven, he started working as an Assistant Professor in the Public Administration and Policy Group at Wageningen University in October 2007.
Art has been involved in inter-university cooperation with the University of Cuenca (Ecuador) in the fields of participatory technology development and river basin managment, and in EU-sponsored projects on participation in river basin management (HarmoniCOP) and adaptive water management (NeWater). His main research interests are collaborative governance, multi-actor conflict and negotiation, issue framing, natural resources management, interdisciplinary research, discourse analysis and experiential simulations (Curriculum Vitae).
RESEARCH
During the last decades it has become commonplace in the fields of public administration and policy sciences to stress the multi-actor character of today’s problems. This is reflected in the shifting emphasis from government to governance. A governance perspective considers the multiplicity of steering mechanisms in a certain domain, bringing into focus other actors, how they interact in and across networks and varied frames or perspectives that they bring to bear on (policy) issues. Collaborative governance theories claim that multi-party collaboration is crucial for addressing issues that involve complex interdependencies between governmental, business and civil society actors. These collaborative governance initiatives are characterized by structural complexity (membership, task structure, ambiguity, dynamics) and diversity (in resources, languages, power and perspectives) and create important challenges for the actors involved. My research deals with the organizational and governance aspects of negotiation, conflict and collaboration between multiple public and private actors in the context of natural resources management. Specific research topics focus on the processes of sensemaking, issue framing, dealing with differences, intervention, social learning and innovation, from an approach that emphasizes the role of meaning, interaction and language
More information about past and ongoing research can be found at http://artdewulf.blogspot.com
KEY PUBLICATIONS
Dewulf, A., Gray, B., Putnam, L., Lewicki, R., Aarts, N., Bouwen, R., et al. (2009). Disentangling approaches to framing in conflict and negotiation research: A meta-paradigmatic perspective. Human Relations, 62(2), 155-193.
Dewulf, A., Termeer, C., Werkman, R., Breeman, G., & Poppe, K. (2009). Transition Management for Sustainability. Towards a multiple theory approach. In K. J. Poppe, C. J. A. M. Termeer & M. Slingerland (Eds.), Transitions towards sustainable agriculture and food chains in peri-urban area’s. Wageningen: Academic Publishers.
Dewulf, A., G. François, C. Pahl-Wostl, and T. Taillieu. (2007). A framing approach to cross-disciplinary research collaboration: experiences from a large-scale research project on adaptive water management. Ecology and Society, 12(2): 14. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss2/art14/
Dewulf, A., Craps, M., Bouwen, R., Taillieu, T., and Pahl-Wostl, C. (2005). Integrated management of natural resources: dealing with ambiguous issues, multiple actors and diverging frames. Water Science & Technology, 52(6), 115-124.
Dewulf, A., Craps, M., & Dercon, G. (2004). How issues get framed and reframed when different communities meet: case study of a collaborative soil conservation initiative in the Ecuadorian Andes. Journal of community and applied social psychology, 14, 177-192.
For recent publications discussed on my blog click here
For a full list of publications since 2007, use this link to the publications in the Wageningen Yield database
A list of older publications can be found at http://art.dewulf.googlepages.com/publicationlist
Most articles can be downloaded from http://artdewulf.blogspot.com (scroll down) or at box.net
PROJECTS
Art Dewulf is or has been involved in the following research projects:
How multiple actors interactively frame and reframe policy issues
In multi-actor contexts, like public-private partnerships, development projects, natural resources management or collaborative governance, some kind of recognized interdependency urges different actors to meet each other and this results in the encounter of differences. When these actors meet each other, they tend to frame the issues at hand in very different ways. We investigated what happens with these different frames when actors start working together. We developed a discursive approach to issue framing, as a process of sensemaking in interaction that depends heavily on communication and language. Using discourse and conversation analysis, we analyzed interaction sequences in the context of (real and simulated) multi-actor development projects, which all have something to do with natural resources management in the Southern Andes of Ecuador. We have specifically looked at how people representing different groups interact with each other and co-construct a problem domain through the way they use language to deal with the issues and each other. This interactive and discursive rather than cognitive approach to issue framing led us to analyze issue framing in actual interaction practices, where issue framing consists of assembling issue elements into meaningful wholes, by selecting, focusing and embedding. We pay specific attention to how this is achieved in language, through specific formulations and descriptions that carry varying implications for the meaning of the issue and, for the mutual relations between the actors and for the ongoing interaction. We also analyzed how differences in issue framing emerge in these multi-actor conversations and how the participants deal with their mutual differences in framing the issues through a number of frame interaction patterns, including accommodating, incorporating, disconnecting, polarizing, exploring and reframing.
New methods for adaptive water management under uncertainty (www.newater.info)
Water managers need to solve a range of interrelated water dilemmas, in a context where human actions and values play a central role. The growing uncertainties of global climate change and the long term implications of management actions make the problems even more difficult. Research within this research includes development of a broadened conceptualization of uncertainties in water management, including ambiguity as a different kind of uncertainty, apart from ontological and epistemic uncertainty. It also includes a case study of water management (HDSR, Kromme Rijn-gebied) about the differentiation of issues and stakes in the interactive decision-making process for a water area plan.
Scaling and governance (IPOP Science Plan “Scaling and governance”).
This research approaches the politics of scale from a sensemaking perspective. The framing of a problem as a local, regional or global problem is the result of an active process of sensemaking. When the European commission defined (transboundary) river basins as the scale for organizing water management they cut across existing administrative boundaries, resulting in many European countries in the activation of new relations and the deactivation of others. This research addresses the mutually influencing relations between a constellation of actors, their interdependencies and the framing of issues at a certain scale.
Social learning in river basin management planning (www.harmonicop.info).
In this project a concept for social learning and collaborative governance has been developed, rooted in the interpretive strands of the social sciences emphasizing the context dependence of knowledge. The role of frames and boundary management in processes of learning at different levels and time scales are investigated.
EDUCATION
PAP-30306 - Designing innovative policy arrangements
Renate Werkman, Art Dewulf
PAP52306 - Policy agenda setting and issue framing Gerard Breeman, Art Dewulf
ENP35806 - Marine environmental quality and governance Simon Bush, Art Dewulf, Tinka Murk, Bart Koelmans
More PAP courses …
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