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Institutional bricolage in community forestry: An agenda for future research

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Institutional bricolage in community forestry – setting out an agenda for future
research

Jessica de Koning & Frances Cleaver

Introduction

Community forestry within a forest governance system in developing countries is often

perceived as a promising way of managing natural resources as it draws on both legislative
rules introduced by governments and local knowledge of resources and local conditions.
However, the formal community forestry institutions introduced by the government often
works differently in practice. This has led to a critical rethinking of the faith placed in
formally designed institutions in community forestry. One of the critical perspectives
proposes that the concept of institutional bricolage helps us to understand how institutions
really work. Institutional bricolage is the creative piecing together of different arrangements,
styles of thinking, and sanctioned social relationships to produce new or adapted institutions
(Cleaver 2001). Institutional bricolage is a relatively new concept, and although it has been
applied in different contexts it is in need of further development. This chapter furthers such
conceptualisation by synthesising insights from the work of de Koning and Cleaver and by
illustrating these with examples from community forestry in Latin America. In so doing it
aims to set out an agenda for future comparative research on institutional bricolage in natural
resource management.

Institutional thinking in community based forest management

In forestry, the role of institutions in regulating forest use is often influenced by institutional
theories such as New Institutional Economics and Common Pool Resources Management.
Although proceeding from different insights, both theories value the designing of the right
institutions for the job (North 1990; Ostrom 1990, 1991). This does not only apply to forestry
alone but also to natural resource management in general. Mainstream policy approaches see
institutions as mechanisms for furthering ‘good governance’ of natural resources at the local
level. Well-designed institutions are thought to play a key role in regulating property rights,
preventing degradation and depletion of resources, promoting robust management and
creating sustainable livelihoods (Cleaver 2001, Koning 2011). Such approaches suggest that
local natural resource management can be strengthened through policy reform, capacity
building, and particularly through redesigning community level institutions (Wiersum 1997).

Communities are thought have an advantage in resource management, being able to draw on
their local knowledge of resources, environmental conditions and technology It is argued that
they may help to mitigate poverty and powerlessness by specifying a place for marginalised
people in decision-making, formulating rules of access to benefit all and organising labour
intensive management activities which generate economic benefits (Wiersum 1997). Forest

1
governance, as the overarching structure, is a popular concept believed to not only provide
‘better’ regulations for forest use but also to lead to improving local development, sustainable
resource use and social justice through the design of public institutions (Leach, Mearns et al.
1999; Paavola 2007). By participating in these public institutions it is suggested that local
communities can call state officials and service providers to account so contributing to good
governance and mitigating state failure. From this perspective local traditions of cooperation
are often seen as providing the building blocks of good resource management, but need
strengthening and formalising, as in the codification of property (Wiersum 1997).

Such approaches draw heavily on Mainstream Institutional thinking (MI). From this
perspective, epitomised by the work of Elinor Ostrom (see for example 1990, 2005) the role
of institutions is to provide information and assurance about the behaviour of others, offer
incentives to behave in the collective good and to monitor opportunistic behaviour. All these
factors aid individual decision-making and choice; rule based institutions reduce the
transaction costs of cooperation . In this model institutions tend to be formalised and public,
designed for purpose. Indeed preferably they are ‘crafted’ through public decision –making
processes. ‘Design Principles’ for robust and long-enduring institutions can be identified;
these concern desirable attributes of the resource managing community and of governance
mechanisms. Scale beyond the community level is dealt with by concepts of the desired
‘nesting’ of local resource management arrangements within larger units of organisation.
This body of ideas is popular with policy makers because it blends neo-liberal economic ideas
with the desirability of decentralised local management and offers clear guidance for building
robust institutions.

Community forest management schemes, as part of NRM, are in this sense not different.
Many forest governance policy initiatives are derived from the basic idea that new formal
institutions need to be designed in order to achieve sustainable forestry. This was already
visible with the publication of the Brundtland report in 1987, which focused on the
standardization of sustainable forest management (Brundtland Commission 1987). It further
evolved in the development of many forestry-related institutional instruments and
mechanisms such as community forest management, certified timber and the establishment of
the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), formally established partnerships for forest products
and the recent payments for reducing carbon emissions (Karky and Skutsch 2010;
Rametsteiner and Simula 2003; Ros-Tonen, van Andel et al. 2008).

However the results of all these different schemes for forest management are, to say the least,
varied. It appears that despite many policy regulations and interventions designed to better
manage forests, the actual practices of sustainable forest management remain nebulous,
subject to interpretation (Leach, Mearns et al. 1999; Schanz 2004; Kant and Berry 2005;
Ribot, Lund, et al. 2010; Koning 2011), and dynamic (Wiersum 1995; Koning 2011).
Drawing on such evidence perspectives have evolved which are critical of the dominant focus
on formally designed institutions in community based management. In addition to exploring
complexity, these perspectives scrutinise the uneven costs and benefits of public participation,
and the ways in which power works through local institutions (Wong 2010; Cleaver, et al
2005, Campbell et al 2001; Matose 2008; Ribot et al 2010).

2
Such approaches contribute to Critical Institutional (CI) thinking. This perspective, though
drawn from disparate insights has some common features. It rejects the rational choice and
functional assumptions of MI and emphasises rather the complexity of institutions entwined
in everyday social life, their historical formation and the interplay between
traditional/modern, and formalised/informal arrangements. In this view, institutions for
natural resource management are not necessarily designed for purpose but borrowed or
adapted from other arrangements ( such as multi-purpose village assemblies, women’s groups
or savings clubs). In this model people’s rationalities are ‘emotional’ ‘moral’ or ‘social’
rationalities as well as economic. Actions and preferences are also shaped by non- conscious
factors – by taken-for-granted everyday practices and embedded ideologies. From a Critical
Institutionalist, perspective the workings of power and the patterning of inequality means that
some people are more able to shape collective rule making, and to benefit from the outcomes
than others. In the table below, the key features of institutional thinking, both mainstream and
critical are summarized.

Mainstream institutionalism (MI) Critical institutionalism (CI)

• Formal /public institutions in nested layers • Networks of arrangements, blurred

• Institutions formed through design and
crafting
• Decision-making and negotiations conducted
in public fora
• ‘Bounded rationality’ models of agency –
individuals as strategic resource appropriators
• Behaviour shaped by incentives, rules,
sanctions
• Efficiency of resource management through
crafted institutions
boundaries, intersecting domains/scales
• Institutions pieced together through processes
of bricolage
• Decision-making and negotiations embedded
in everyday life, formal and informal
institutions
• Agency shaped consciously and non-
consciously for individuals with complex
identities
• Behaviour shaped by blended social
rationalities
• Social inclusion/exclusion reproduced
through institutions

Both schools of thought face a number of challenges in explaining institutional formation and
functioning. These include the need to balance policy legibility with the recognition of
complexity; to avoid both too much abstraction which overlooks local specificities and too
much detail which may obscure the patterning of processes and effects. Institutions must also
be understood in local and non-local contexts. They are animated by people, and analyses
should offer explanations of how and why this occurs and to what effects. Institutions are also
authoritative arrangements so tracking the ways in which power is visibly and invisibly
channelled through them is a key challenge.

One way of addressing these challenges is through the theory of institutional bricolage. This is
a critical institutional approach as it has evolved from questioning the faith placed in
designing robust institutions to fight resource degradation and assumptions about the direct

3
relationship between policy and local practices (Leach, Mearns et al. 1999; Mehta, Leach et
al. 1999; Cleaver 2001). Institutional bricolage implies the piecing together “different
institutions, styles of thinking, social relationships.” (Cleaver 2001; pp. 16). In recent years
the concept of bricolage has been deployed to frame research in different NRM related fields -
such as water, forest, land and wildlife management, and in different geographical regions
such as Africa, Latin America, and Europe (Cleaver 2002; Koning 2011; Schering 2008;
Sandstrom 2008; Osei-Kufuor 2010). Despite its increasing popularity, and some
commonalities of approach, institutional bricolage has been a somewhat loosely defined
concept. Here we aim to redress this deficiency by outlining some of the key elements of
bricolage and by identifying the practices through which institutions are formed and adapted
at community level. In doing so we aim to provide a conceptual tool for the better
understanding of people/natural resource interactions.

Institutional Bricolage

Bricolage is a French word meaning to make creative and resourceful use of whatever
materials are at hand, regardless of their original purpose. We develop the concept to explain
institutional formation and functioning. Institutional bricolage is a process in which actors
consciously and unconsciously reshape or piece together different arrangements at hand
(Cleaver 2001, 2002; Koning 2011). Bricolage consists of the adaptive processes in which
people inscribe configurations of rules, traditions, norms and relationships with meaning and
authority. In so doing they modify old arrangements and invent new ones but innovations are
always linked authoritatively to acceptable ways of doing things. In this process of
institutional bricolage, institutional components from different origins are continuously re-
used, reworked, or refashioned to perform new functions (Galvan 1997; Lanzara 1999;
Cleaver 2001; Sehring 2009; Koning 2011).These refurbished arrangements are everyday
responses to changing circumstances – the concept of bricolage helps us to understand how
such processes of innovation, adaptation, and legitimation occur.

Rather than being designed, or even crafted , institutions are patched together, consciously
and non-consciously, from the social, cultural and political resources available to people
based on the logic of dynamic adaptation (Chase Smith et al 2001:42). As such institutions
are not ‘things’ but the results of what people do, they must be continually reproduced or re-
enacted by people to exist (Lund 2006). No one factor (or group of factors) are sufficient to
explain their success. Rather institutional processes are dynamic, play out through very
different forms in varying contexts and, to this extent, elude design.

Key elements of bricolage

The emphasis on complexity, diversity and on improvised adaptation should not mislead us
into thinking that any patched together arrangement will suffice. Bricolage is more than an
opportunistic short cut to institutional design. Rather we see it as an articulation of the

4
dynamic relationship between social structure and individual agency. Here we identify five
key characteristics of the formation of institutions through bricolage; processes which shape
and are shaped by individual action and by broader societal relationships and patterns of
resource distribution (Cleaver 2011).

1. Everyday practice, ‘necessary improvisation ‘and innovation.

Institutions are formed in the necessary improvisation of daily practice. People piece together
institutional arrangements to address their everyday challenges and to respond to changes in
their social fields. In the reworking of the existing institutional arrangements, actors innovate.
Institutions so formed are therefore a patchwork the new and the second-hand, they include:

• taken-for-granted ways of doing things

• well-worn and accepted practices adapted to new conditions
• organisational arrangements invented or ‘borrowed’ from elsewhere
• new or adapted devices to ensure social applicability.

2. Multi-purpose institutions, ebb and flow.

Such pieced together institutions often have multi-purpose functions. They are rarely
organised only according to single purposes, sectoral divisions, particular projects. Even if
they begin that way they often evolve to encompass other purposes. Bricolage is a
fundamentally dynamic process characterised by unevenness and temporal intermittence.

3. Naturalisation, leakage of meaning, invention of tradition

Bricolage involves the piecing together of old and new to make something different. However
key to this process is that the ‘something different’ must appear familiar, it must work on a
routinely accepted logic, it must socially fit. There are a number of ways in which new
configurations are made to seem familiar and legitimate:

• Tradition is called upon both unconsciously and consciously and can be re-invented
• Meaning in the form of legitimising symbols, discourses and power relationships leaks
from one institutional setting to another;
• Institutional arrangements constructed through bricolage are often ‘naturalised’ by
analogy to existing ‘right ways of doing things’ – categorisations, hierarchies, notions
of proper order derived from the social, natural or spiritual worlds.

4. Conscious and non-conscious action, moral rationalities.

Bricoleurs shape institutions both consciously and non-consciously. People devise

arrangements of roles and rules for natural resource management but this is also influenced by
routinised everyday practices and conventions (such as the ways of collecting water from the
well), by overlapping social identities (for example the forest user is also a mother, wife,
member of a particular caste or class or ethnic group) , by moral world views (such as the
desirability of living in peace together) , and by conscious and non- conscious psychological

5
motivations (including emotions of belonging, the desire for recognition, the preference for
companionship, dislike of conflict).

5. Authoritative processes and unequal outcomes.

Bricolage is an authoritative process, shaped by relations of power. Individual bricoleurs are

able to exercise different levels of influence over the formation and functioning of
institutions, as a result of their social positions. Authority, reputation, assets all matter when it
comes to making and breaking rules.

Power shapes institutional functioning but is often invisible, embedded in the taken for
granted nature of the social order. Inequalities can be challenged in processes of institutional
bricolage, through public negotiation and in the daily practical enacting of resource access
where endless variations on bending the collective rules are possible. However, neither public
spaces nor ‘everyday spaces’ are neutral but are sites where power is exercised. The costs to
poor or socially marginal individuals of challenging the rules are often high –in terms of loss
of reputation, goodwill and patronage, payment of fines, time spent resolving disputes and
restricted resource access.

Practices of institutional bricolage

Delineating broad characteristics of bricolage still leaves us with the question of how are
these processes combined or blended to produce hybrid institutions in particular contexts?
Building on the broad elements of bricolage outlined above, de Koning (2011) tracks three
types of practice adopted by local actors, which shape the way institutions are formed and
altered at community level (Koning 2011). These practices are aggregation, alteration, and
articulation. The practices show the different ways in which local communities respond to
institutions and help to explain the varied evolution of institutions. Drawing on examples
from community forestry in Bolivia and Ecuador, de Koning shows that these local practices
are interwoven articulations of the key elements of institutional bricolage outlined above.

The process of institutional bricolage that happens when bureaucratic institutions are
introduced into a pre-existing socially embedded setting can be described metaphorically as
resembling a rock that is thrown into a pond. As it enters the water, it creates a ripple on the
surface that widens out and becomes smaller. The rock, in this case, is the formally designed
institution that has been ‘thrown into a pond’ of local institutions, knowledge, technologies,
and conditions. The throwing of a rock in a pond produces an well-known effect: the rock
enters the water, sinks and produces ripples on the water surface. However, the comparison
with institutional bricolage stops there. As it turns out, the rock does not necessarily sink in
the water nor is it as solid as it would appear.

There are at least three possible outcomes of this rock-like item being thrown into the water
that relate directly to the identified practices. First, the rock enters the water ‘normally’ but
then dissolves in the water, like sugar. Second, the water resembles soft ice and the thrown
rock leaves a mark or a dent on it. In this situation, the rock transforms into a film on the

6
surface, like oil. Third, a rock could bounce off the water, as if thrown on thick ice. In this
case, the rock does not enter the water and is forced to go in another direction. Similarly, there
are at least three consequences or outcomes of the different processes of bricolage. Each of
these outcomes relates to one of the three practices: aggregation, alteration, and articulation.

Rock Rock Rock

Pond Pond
Water Soft Ice Thick Ice

Aggregation Alteration Articulation

Figure ‘Rock in pond’ image of institutional bricolage

1. Aggregation

Aggregation, or the recombination of different types of institutions and social-cultural

elements, often involves embedded institutions and social characteristics, such as culture,
routines, traditions, social norms, needs, expectancies, or experience. These are recombined
with formal institutions that are imposed on the community such as forest regulations,
standards, or technical norms on logging. In this recombination, the formal institutions are
given either a new meaning or a new purpose. The outcome of this process can be described
as a more or less balanced situation in which both types of institution correspond, or are even
in harmony. This process results in the necessary correlation between the formal institutional
frameworks and locally embedded institutional, social and cultural elements (Cleaver 2002).

In a Bolivian community, a community forest management plan was implemented. This

involved introducing government regulations aiming at sustainably managing the forests to
the community. Through creative recombining, the community quickly added other elements
to the forest management plan. Through innovation and some necessary improvisation, the
forest management plan not only became a plan to regulate timber extraction but also a land
title document. By establishing a forest management plan for a certain area of forest, the
community solved an long-lasting issue of unclear informal land titles. By bringing the
elements of formal regulations and the need for secure land titles together, the community
ensured a social applicability of the formal regulations.

7
Another consequence of aggregation is the creation of multipurpose institutions. Although
community forestry solely aims at improving forest use by installing community level
institutions, these institutions almost naturally, or unconsciously, become multi-purpose.
Local associations for forest management also become a social security system. Members of a
local Bolivian association chipped in when one of its members became seriously ill and she
needed to be hospitalized. In another case, this local association also functioned as a
neighbourhood watch to guard some cattle from theft. These introduced community
institutions become therefore much more than just single-purpose forest institutions. They are
also given more symbolic purposes when community members recombine their identity with
these institutions. In the example of the forest associations, community members used this
formal structure to differentiate themselves from other communities without a local
organization or even members of the same community who were not part of the association.
In this way local identities, livelihoods, aspirations, and status are strengthened by linking
them to the reshaped formal regulations.

However, the way these collective multipurpose institutions can be very dependent to issues
of power. Especially in collective community institutions in which a leader is formally
appointed, this leader can have a very big say in the way the aggregation practices develop.
For example, one the leaders of an Ecuadorian association for forest management was able to
combine this association with his personal political ambitions. In this way he was able to
influence certain collective decisions and create a platform for his own political messages.
This resulted in a change in the original collective and democratic character of the association
as his position in the organization became more and more dominant.

2. Alteration

Alteration, the adaptation of institutions, can be related to both imposed institutions and
locally embedded institutions, such as cultural beliefs or social norms. Local actors are often
found tweaking and tinkering with different institutions to make them better fit their
livelihoods or identity. This practice can vary from making small changes to complete
reinterpretations and negation of certain institutions in which it is hard to predict the actual
outcome.

Necessary improvisation to ensure some social applicability are important key elements in
practices of alteration. Forest users in a small community in Ecuador were for example found
to invent certain conditions that allows them to continue their daily practices in the forest.
These invented circumstances were used to motivate the negation of certain negatively
perceived formal regulations. For example, farmers would construct the image of cattle
farmers in order to avoid the stringent regulations for forests. By claiming this image and
inventing a tradition of cattle farming, they felt justified to continue their business as usual. In
their eyes, forest management was meant for forest users and not for cattle farmers.
Alteration, however, also often entails the adaptation of well-worn practices to new
circumstances. In the same example, farmers would decrease the amount of timber they
wanted to extract. By portraying timber extraction more of an exception in which only very
little timber was extracted, they felt it was justified to continue these practices without a forest

8
management plan. These inventions and reinterpretations, however, could easily change on a
day to day basis. Alteration practices depend very much on the time, location, and the
situation.

Alteration is also a practice that involves individuals. Especially forest users with certain
authority or economic resources have much more possibilities to alter institutions than others.
In the Ecuadorian community, the circumstances to make a living were very poor. The
constant rain resulted in high numbers of people with long diseases or arthritis. The poor
Amazon soils became exhausted. The price of cattle had dropped. Only a few farmers were
able to still make a living. However, the poorer members of the community were not able to
do so anymore, which made it also virtually impossible to participate in institutional bricolage
practices of any kind.

3. Articulation

Articulation, the asserting of traditional identities and culture, could be considered as a form
of alteration if it was not for the notable claim made and just as notable rejection of formal
institutions. The introduced formal institution bounces off a shield of local perceptions of
traditions and identity. Articulation is as much visible in the actual practices as it is in
discursive practices. Articulation in the cases happened when the forest regulations were
directly in conflict with local identities. In some cases this leads to a calm but firm distancing
in other it may almost lead to a revolt. This depends on how strong the sense of identity, or
the sense of the self, is. As said before, articulation always leads to a rejection of the forest
regulations. This practice may also result in a situation of normative pluriformity and
selective adherence to different institutional features (Benda-Beckman and Meijl 1999;
Cleaver 2002). This process of articulation results then in a situation resembling a clash, a
friction, or a discord between the different types of institutions.

When identities are very strong and traditional, articulation practices are quite visible. This
was the case in an indigenous community in Ecuador. This community’s identity was formed
by their traditions and their perception of being a very independent community. This identity
was also shaped by their dislike of government intervention of any kind. Throughout history,
the government has tried to change their culture and traditions by converting them to
Catholicism, forcing them to make use of the modern health care system and obliging them to
send their children to an Ecuadorian school. These activities resulted in a growing dislike of
the state as the indigenous community felt it was losing its traditional identity. This resulted in
practices of articulation in which the community called upon their tradition and forest
regulations for forest management plans were collectively rejected.. As the forest use held an
economic, social-cultural, and a spiritual value, the community had a very clear image of the
right way of doing things which did not correspond at all with the forest regulations. In this
process the traditional culture as independent community leaked from a social- political
context to the context of forest use. In this process, old symbols – such as their warfare
practices and status as fierce fighters – were used to justify the rejection of forest regulations.
However, in this same process the meaning of what is traditional lost part of its meaning as
the traditional identity did not always coincided with current needs for community

9
development and moral rationalities such as conflict avoidance. What remained was a rather
difficult situation in which identity articulation only happened under certain circumstances
and when the timing was right. They happened mostly around traditional festivities and
political gatherings. In other instances, articulation was much less present.

Conclusions

The examples of community forestry in Bolivia and Ecuador show the diversity in elements
and practices of institutional bricolage affecting community forestry. The assumed direct
relationship between designed community level institutions, better managed forest, and
improved livelihoods does not hold up in practice. The existence of processes of aggregation,
alteration and articulation show that formal institutions do not necessarily function as
intended and result in a multitude of possible outcomes The identified local practices are very
much interwoven with the key elements of institutional bricolage but their particular
configuration differs according to context and over time . However, some more general
observations on the relationship between elements and practices can be made. For example,
practices of aggregation can be linked to the creation of multipurpose institutions. Alteration
often involves innovation and necessary improvisation. Finally, articulation mostly relates to
the invention of tradition and leakage of meaning.

However, this still leaves us with many questions about the scope of institutional bricolage
and amount to which these processes can be managed. The challenge of studying and
analysing institutional bricolage processes is that it is not solely a conscious, well thought out
strategy to respond to introduced institutions on community forestry. The responses of local
actors can appear as calculated and conscious, but are also a much more natural, think-on-
your-feet, almost instinctive reaction. Furthermore, certain local institutions are that deeply
embedded in local livelihoods that is difficult for actors to consciously draw on them. This
can be particularly visible in traditional communities with a strong social and cultural
structure.

To summarise, we argue that the concept of bricolage, underpinned by the idea that
institutions are animated by socially located people, offers a useful way to understand the
interface between structure and agency. We have outlined some key characteristics of
processes of bricolage and identified some of the practices through which people shape
institutions. The concept of institutional bricolage offers a number of insights while
simultaneously raise questions which point to areas for further research. These include:

• The numerous dimensions of plurality in resource management ( of actors, scale, uses and
values) mean that the institutional arrangements for community forestry are multi-
stranded, overlapping and imbued with a variety of meanings and interests. This plurality
raises questions as to how far processes of bricolage can be managed, and to what extent
institutions elude design?

10
• Recognising the interplay between the creative exercise of agency, the constraining effects
of social relationships, and designed rules should enable us to track just how much room
for manoeuvre specific institutions offer to different actors.
• Institutional analysis from a bricolage perspective is centrally concerned with tracking the
effects of arrangements on equity as well as resource optimisation. This usefully situates
institutional analysis within broader processes of governance and raises questions about
where the boundaries of institutional analysis for natural resource management should be
drawn.
• A bricolage perspective reveals the centrality of power relations to both the functioning
and outcomes of institutional processes and so moves beyond over-instrumental
‘technical’ approaches to natural resource management which are bound to fail.
Illuminating the operation of power in everyday relationships, as well as through authority
exercised by the state poses further challenges for those concerned with promoting better
resource management. To what extent can this power be channelled to effect equitable and
sustainable natural resource management without reproducing entrenched inequalities?

The examples from community forestry and the questions raised reflect the need for further
research of institutional bricolage. The bringing together of different key elements and
practices of institutional bricolage is a first step in shedding more light on the diversity of
responses to institutional influences as a result of community forest management systems.
However, it also raises further questions about the predictability or the manageability and the
scope of institutional bricolage processes. To answer these valid questions and to further
identify central aspects of institutional bricolage, more studies are necessary. These studies
should not only focus on mapping out the wider institutional landscape but also track the
institutional processes over time. These aspects of “breadth” and “depth” can be best achieved
by zooming in on the local practices of social actors, but also placing these within wider
frameworks of governance. This calls for longitudinal and comparative studies in which it
becomes possible to compare and examine the processes of institutional bricolage in
community forestry and other sectors, across difference contexts, over time.

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