Join us next week for a webinar hosted by the Collaborative Governance thematic stream working group. During the webinar – titled “Beyond methods: An experience of collective stewardship of territories in Mexico” – Juliana Merçon and Loni Hensler will share their experiences and insights of collaborative multi-stakeholder processes in Mexico. The webinar will take place on Monday, May 26, 2025 at 8:30 am Mountain Time (Arizona – UTC-7). Register here to attend via Zoom.
More information on the webinar:
“Beyond methods: An experience of collective stewardship of territories in Mexico”
Participatory methods are praised as drivers for urgent transformations to address multiple crises and, at the same time, they are criticized as the new tyranny to legitimize decisions and research outcomes. This presentation is an invitation to revisit the notion of methods and the way in which they have been implemented in order to open new paths for transformation. From the collective journey of the Forest Stewards Network that celebrates 10 years of existence in Xalapa, Veracruz, we share insights into the complex life of collaborative multi-stakeholder processes. We present three key participatory experiences and their corresponding lessons:
i. the citizens’ meeting from which the network’s territorial shared management process emerged, ii. the collaborative construction of utopias for strategic planning, and iii. the learning tours through the territories, with exchanges from a peasant to peasant approach. We question the central place often attributed to methods and discuss other fundamental dimensions of collective processes oriented towards justice and sustainability. What lies beyond methods? How do we facilitate socio-ecological transformation processes?
Juliana Merçon is a researcher at the Institute for Research in Education at Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico. She conducts participatory action research in collaboration with urban and rural networks, organizations and communities. Juliana works with agroecological, feminist and decolonial approaches and has participated in the Forest Stewards Network since its conception.
Loni Hensler practices the art of facilitating and systematizing participatory processes of collective action towards a comanagement of more just and sustainable territories with rural, urban, indigenous and fisher communities. She works on transformative learning, diverse values around nature, the defense of territory and the construction of horizontalities from a collaborative action-research approach. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) and a member of multiple networks.
Register now to attend this webinar.
