Community Empowerment and Landscape Decision Making frameworks in Scotland: improving outcomes for people and nature

该网络将为艺术和人文研究人员在更广泛的英国、欧洲和全球背景下管理苏格兰土地资产和景观的弹性和民主决策框架的形成做出独特而重要的贡献。该网络将通过人权和社区赋权的视角，重点关注决策文化。这些概念为构建与土地相关的无形或无形商品提供了词汇，此外，还为平衡和分配来自景观的许多利益（经济、社会、文化、环境、精神）提供了一个结构。这些惠益可表现为健康权、文化生活权、食物权、住房权、工作权、教育权（人权方面）的成果得到改善，或表现为机构、自主权、所有权和参与性决策得到改善（社区赋权方面），并且与健康和福祉有着内在联系。决策方式的一个关键但很少受到质疑的方面是治理、规划、机构、专业、纪律和其他文化的影响。公共政策现在提倡的许多原则和目标——可持续性、发展、参与、赋权——都被根深蒂固的思维习惯和做事方式所破坏，这些习惯和方式源于长期存在的、有争议的基础价值观。这一点很重要，因为它影响到社区、公共机构和其他利益攸关方取得积极成果的能力。通过持续关注在这种情况下决策如何受到掌权者文化的影响这一问题，本项目将在未来对新的决策框架作出重大贡献。这是一个研究不足的领域，研究可以在公共和政治领域支持结构化和基于证据的辩论。艺术和人文研究人员有能力提供批判性的见解，因为所研究的问题是一个文化问题。该网络是一个平等的伙伴关系，由来自广泛学科的学者和从事苏格兰土地资产和景观管理的各种政策制定者和实践者组成。该网络将通过调查决策文化，并通过提出和促进有助于在未来提供全面、综合和基于地方的决策的变革建议，产生现实世界和可衡量的政策影响。有许多组织和机构参与苏格兰的景观和土地资产，这个网络将提供一个论坛，以开放和尊重的方式分享和比较他们之间的经验，这在这样一个有争议的政治领域至关重要。这样的研究如何有助于建立更健全的决策框架，影响我们社会面临的基本问题，如土地有限资源的所有权、使用和管理？每个网络成员都从他们自己的学科和实践者的角度考虑了这个问题，我们希望共同为一场生动而重要的辩论做出贡献，并在新的景观决策框架上达成共识。

This network will develop the distinctive and vital contributions that arts and humanities researchers can make to the formation of resilient and democratic decision-making frameworks for managing land assets and landscapes in Scotland, set within the wider UK, European and global contexts. The network will focus on cultures of decision-making through the lenses of human rights and community empowerment. These concepts provide a vocabulary for framing the often invisible or intangible goods associated with land, and moreover, provide a structure for balancing and distributing the many benefits (economic, social, cultural, environmental, spiritual) derived from landscapes. These benefits may manifest in improved outcomes for the rights to health, cultural life, food, housing, work, education (in human rights terms) or in improved agency, autonomy, ownership and participatory decision-making (in community empowerment terms), and are intrinsically linked to the health and well-being. A critical but rarely interrogated aspect of the ways decisions are made is the influence of governance, planning, institutional, professional, disciplinary and other cultures. Many of the principles and goals now promoted by public policy - sustainability, development, participation, empowerment - are undermined by deeply-embedded habits of thought and ways of doing things derived from longer-standing and contested underpinning values. This matters because it affects the ability of communities, public bodies and other stakeholders to achieve positive outcomes. By focusing sustained attention on the issue of how in this context decision-making is influenced by the cultures of those with power this project will make a significant future contribution to new decision-making frameworks. This is an under-investigated area where research can support structured and evidence-based debate in the public and political arenas. Arts and humanities researchers are well positioned to contribute critical insights because the issue under investigation is a matter of culture. The network is an equal partnership between academics from a wide range of disciplines and a diverse range of policy makers and practitioners engaged in the often-contested management of land assets and landscapes in Scotland. The network will have real-world and measurable policy impacts by investigating cultures of decision making and by producing and promoting recommendations for change that will help to deliver holistic, integrated and place-based decision-making in the future. There are many organisations and agencies involved in landscapes and land assets in Scotland and this network will offer a forum to share and compare experiences between them in an open and respectful way, crucial in such a contested political field. How can such research help to create more robust frameworks for decision-making that impacts upon the fundamental issues facing our society such as the ownership, use and management of the finite resource that is land? Each of the network members have been considering that question from their own disciplinary and practitioner perspectives, and collectively, we wish to make a contribution to a lively and important debate, and find consensus on new landscape decision-making frameworks.