Exploring transformative processes at the intersections of land, water and livelihoods: a case study from the Tsitsa Project, South Africa

Figures & data

Box 1. The research context of this case study (for the full workshop report see Appendix 1).

In 2019 the University of Osnabrück, Rhodes University, University of Cape Town and University of Kwazulu-Natal initiated a collaborative research project entitled: Knowledge for tomorrow – Cooperative research projects in sub-Saharan Africa: Analysing transformative approaches for the management of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus and the Advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Anchored around two WEF workshops and a summer school. The project partners shared knowledge, approaches and experiences on transformative processes to better understand the nature of these processes associated with implementation of the SDGs in the context of the WEF nexus approach. Key transformative processes that the project engaged with included those associated with learning, agency formation, engaging power relations and structure. The consortium members therefore worked to:

a. identify synergies and divergences associated with comparing and analysing transformative processes in case studies which are and have potential to further stimulate transformative pathways to sustainability, and

b. enhance theory building, co-learning and empathy across borders using this co-learning and analytical process to strengthen cases of transformation to sustainability in Sub-Saharan African countries.

A high-level conceptual framework (Lotz-Sisitka et al. under review) was drafted through the project to enable deeper analysis and cross-comparison of different transformation research interventions conducted by project partners. The framework explored and integrated four key concepts critical to transformative processes, learning, agency, power and structure. To test and explore the feasibility of the framework project partners applied the framework to a set of case studies. As a result, this case study, along with two others (Pahl-Wostl et al. 2023; Pringle et al. 2023) were initiated.

Figure 1. The Tsitsa river catchment comprising five quaternary catchments (T35A-E) approximately half of which is governed under traditional authorities.

Figure 2. Vignette 1: the transformation story of Ntombi, a local woman employed as a citizen technician on the Tsitsa Project. A series of events relating to the four concepts of transformation (learning, agency, power and structure) have been included as boxes along the transformative cycle. The events are referred to in the text using codes (V1a–j). Shaded lemniscates indicate/acknowledge historical and future cycles of transformation.

Figure 3. Vignette 2: the transformation story of Mark, a senior manager in the Department of Environment Forestry and Fisheries (DEFF) responsible for the operation of the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) in the Tsitsa river catchment. A series of events relating to the four concepts of transformation (learning, agency, power and structure) have been included as boxes along the transformative cycle. The events are referred to in the text using codes (V2a–j). Shaded lemniscates indicate/acknowledge historical and future cycles of transformation.

Table 1. Cross-scale/level analysis of vignette 1: Ntombi. In the analysis, we use the Cash et al. (2006) recognition of levels within scales, as well as multi- and cross-scale interactions, to relate scale to the four social system process elements of structure, learning, agency and power. In each cell, examples at each scale may refer to one of more levels.

Vignette 1: Ntombi Scale and Levels	Structure (Ecological, Built, Institutional)	Learning	Agency	Power
Eco-spatial Scale Levels: Globe, Regions, Landscapes, Patches. (Bannatyne et al. 2017)	Ecological: Ntombi worked at the patch level, a river site. She collected water samples for suspended sediment measurements.	At patch and landscape levels Ntombi engaged in learning from TP researchers about erosion processes – connecting rainfall, livestock impact on vegetation cover, and sediment in the river, at her sample site.	At the patch level Ntombi had a personal practice of reliably and safely collecting water samples.	At patch and landscape levels Ntombi: generated income – a household and community origin of power. Knowing about sediment, and the significance of erosion to grazing livelihoods increased her personal status and power.
Temporal Scale (Recognising fast/slow and short/long) Levels: Long term (2–5 years), Annual, Seasonal/Quarterly, Daily.	Daily and medium term: Ntombi collected sediment samples twice per day, and up to 20 per day during the rise and fall of flood water. She engaged quarterly and over the long-term with TP structures.	Ntombi engaged at each of the temporal levels for different purposes in the TP, daily in the community, at least quarterly with the catchment co-ordinator, at least annually at a formal learning event.	Ntombi has once contributed at an international conference – this reflected confidence generated over years. Quarterly and long term Ntombi attended and contributed to TP meetings Daily Ntombi was part of community interactions concerning TP.	Ntombi’s increasing confidence through time (long term) emerged as personal power, with feedback into agency.
Jurisdictional Scale Levels: Inter-governmental,  National, Provincial, Local.	Built: The proposed dam is the largest structural element in the system. Ntombi lives in the area directly affected by the proposed dam. Ntombi is connected through her local community responses to the development. Ecological and Institutional: Her contribution to sediment knowledge influences provincial and national DEFF: NRM restoration. Her influence is likely to increase at local government level through participatory governance development.	The TP worked to develop participatory governance (Palmer et al. 2022), and Ntombi participated in ‘Learning words’ workshops. Her confidence catalysed active participation by other resident participants. She routinely shares her practice-related learning at traditional leadership meetings, however, her opportunities to influence formal local, regional and national governance are rarer and more uncertain.	Ntombi’s agency is not yet exercised with levels of formal government. Her agency is exercised with traditional government, which is male dominated. An influential woman contributes to overall gender agency.	The combination of institutional structure, agency and learning opportunities interact to amplify Ntombi’s role as a powerful community woman. Inherent gender-related power imbalances remain a constraint.
Institutional Scale [Recognising ‘rules in form’ and ‘rules in use’ (Clifford-Holmes et al. 2016)] Levels: Constitution, Laws and regulations, Operating rules.	Ntombi follows operating rules in sediment sample collection, meeting attendance, and her influence is often mediated through TP operating rules.	Although there is less interlinkage between learning and institutional scales. Ntombi could use her learning to influence TP operating rules.	Ntombi exercises agency in following operating rules in all aspects of her engagement with TP.	There are no examples of Ntombi exercising power in the jurisdictional scale.
Management Scale Levels: Strategies, Projects, Tasks.	Ntombi’s management is at the task level with careful accurate diligent sample collection, and at the project level with her growing knowledge of the TP.	There is a strong link between Learning and the TP and tasks. Ntombi learned all the sediment sampling techniques at the task level and engaged with many of the co-learning TP processes and events.	Ntombi exercises agency in her task of sediment collection. At the project level she proactively communicates with the TP co-ordinator and the sediment research team – particularly in relation to extreme weather events.	Ntombi has become a clear leader in the Citizen Technician group and is an influencer at the project level. This is a catalyst for improved performance and reliability across the citizen technician group.
Networks/Relational Scale Levels: Trans-society, Society, Kin,  Family.	Within the structure of the TP, Ntombi connects at family, kin and societal, through income generation and as a strong example of the potential of citizen science.	Ntombi’s active energetic presence and knowledge sharing about citizen science, and erosion in co-learning spaces, TP meetings and workshops, her early participation in the catchment Adaptive Planning Workshop (Palmer et al. 2022), and her interactions with community liaison officers have all contributed to building a co-learning network related to the catchment.	Ntombi is a network generator, and a warm relational person – she acts to encourage social cohesion and community confidence in the TP. For example, when the project advisory committee visited the catchment, she gathered neighbours, family and school children to participate in demonstrating the hand-held sediment reader.	The positive energy Ntombi brings to networks and relationships translates into social power. Ntombi has related this sense of being respected and sought-out for as a person who understands the catchment, in personal conversations with the authors.
Knowledge Scale (Recognising General/specific and universal/contextual)	Ntombi has, and shares, specific contextual knowledge of her river site in relation to sediment. She has and shares general contextual knowledge of the landscape, TP and the local jurisdictional context.	There is a direct relationship between learning and knowledge. The TP has created an enabling environment for Ntombi to thrive in co-learning and knowledge generation and sharing.	Both specific river site knowledge, and general landscape, TP, societal, and Jurisdictional underpins Ntombi’s agency across scales and levels.	At the interface of knowledge and power, Ntombi is a strong figure, challenging the hegemonic power of formal education, science and research. Her evident contextual knowledge – combined with her individual agency provides compelling advocacy for a respect of contextual and learned knowledge.

Table 2. Cross-scale/level analysis of vignette 2: Mark. In the analysis, we use the Cash et al. (2006) recognition of levels within scales, as well as multi- and cross-scale interactions, to relate scale to the four social system process elements of structure, learning, agency and power. In each cell, examples at each scale may refer to one of more levels.

Vignette 2: Mark Scale and Levels	Structure (Ecological, Built, Institutional)	Learning	Agency	Power
Eco-spatial Scale Levels: Globe, Regions,  Landscapes, Patches (Bannatyne et al. 2017).	Mark has responsibility for restoration operations affecting ecological infrastructure at the landscape and regional levels.	Region and Landscape: Mark has engaged actively in co-learning about the TP landscape. However, the feedback between, for example, learning about soil structure, erosion, and the design of restoration interventions can be slow.	Region and Landscape: Mark makes decisions and ensures implementation concerning NRM operations in the province and catchment.	Mark has decision-making power at the regional and landscape level that affect everyone involved in DEFF: NRM activities. He has influence at a national scale as a provincial leader.
Temporal Scale (Recognising fast/slow and short/long) Levels: Annual, Seasonal/Quarterly, Daily	Institutional: Mark is embedded in the structure of the DEFF: NRM. At the structural-temporal interface he makes decisions in both immediate, fast-changing, and slower, longer-term contexts.	Mark responds to ‘learning by doing’ at all the time scales. He has integrated new learning into practice systemically in his work life. For example, he has been willing to advocate for timelier EPWP contract renewals, and he regularly communicates the restoration-livelihood link into senior government meetings. His willingness to learn and take on new ideas is clear in his strong support of people-centred, livelihood focus for NRM restoration activities.	Time and agency are a critical interlinkage. It is exactly the protracted (long) bureaucratic processes related to the payment of EPWP workers that impact the most vulnerable workers in the TP system. Despite responsibility, Mark often has low agency in the face of bureaucracy.	Mark exercises decision-making power comfortably and consistently in multiple time frames. He characteristically exercises enabling, not oppressive, power. He does not have the power to influence the slow cumbersome bureaucratic structure that limit his nimbleness to respond to TP knowledge and make income streams more reliable, and the location of restoration activities more responsive to community input.
Jurisdictional Scale Levels: Inter-governmental,  National, Provincial, Local.	Mark works at the interface of structure and jurisdictional scale from local to national. From the provincial level he is structurally active both up- and down levels (planning across the Departments of: Human Settlements Water and Sanitation, Cooperative Governance, and Traditional Affairs and Minerals and Energy).	At an early participatory governance workshop Mark’s frustration with participants’ preoccupation with the proposed dam, interfered with his learning about the possibilities of the Adaptive Planning Process in the Strategic Adaptive Management of the TP landscape. Mark’s learning is effective intergovernmentally though the TP ‘B-team’ a quarterly meeting among stakeholder government agencies.	Mark exercises agency from local to national levels. His agency is most evident in a willingness to engage proactively with the TP, and in responding decisively to TP communications.	Mark has organisational and decision-making power at the provincial and influence at the local and national level. His advice into the national planning level is a possible lever of change point.
Institutional Scale [Recognising ‘rules in form’ and ‘rules in use’ (Clifford-Holmes et al. 2016)] Levels: Constitution, Laws and regulations, Operating rules.	Within the structure of DEFF: NRM in response to the structures of the dam and the landscape, Mark can set operating rules for restoration implementors and influence regulation at the national level.	Mark’s learning is expressed in operating rules for selecting restoration sites, which are becoming more influenced by articulated community preferences and needs.	Mark exercises agency in a balancing act between what he knows in terms of top-down operating rules, and what he is learning about adaptive responses. This emerges as positive verbal support, and limited success in changing the ‘rules in form’. He can verbally encourage implementing agents to perform better in terms of ‘rules in use’ for example by communicating clearly with EPWP workers. There is least flexibility in influencing formal government financial operating rules.	Mark’s power is exercised at the operational level. He makes sure the EPWP contract cycle is as efficient as possible; evaluates and engages service providers; and links the operational TP activities with researchers – this is especially important for village planning where residents decide on locating restoration interventions.
Management Scale Levels: Strategies, Projects,  Tasks.	Mark is active at all three levels. He delivered specific tasks in terms of areas cleared of alien vegetation, and erosion control structures built; he is active at the project level across provincial NRM enterprises, and he contributes to the national strategy for clearing alien invasive plants.	There is evidence of Mark’s learning in the shifts in the planning and implementation of restoration tasks, projects and strategic planning. This is particularly clear in his input into the co-operation between research and operational planning in the TP.	Mark expresses agency at all three levels, undertaking personal tasks and overseeing others’; actively monitoring and ensuring delivery of restoration projects, and contributing annually to delivering DEFF: NRM strategic planning.	Mark has decision-making power at the task, project and strategic level provincially, and influence at the national strategic level.
Networks/Relational Scale Levels: Trans-society, Society Kin = provincial DEFF:NRM office, Family = trusted DEFF:NRM  colleagues	Mark has a warm engaging personality – he has effective networks across all the network/relational levels – within the structures of the TP and DEFF: NRM.	Mark’s influence on learning is exemplified by his request to the Governance researchers to run a complex systems workshop with regional operational staff (Kin) early in the TP.	Mark exercises agency in his relational freedom – where he chooses to have a wide sphere of engaged relational influence.	This is an important point of cross-scale interaction. Mark’s strong network and relationality strengthened the power of his other interactions across scales and in each transformative dimension.
Knowledge Scale (Recognising General/specific and universal/contextual)	Cross-scale integration is strong, as Mark’s general restoration knowledge enabled him to be effectively active in the Tsitsa and other provincial landscapes and institutional structures with clear contextual effectiveness.	Mark shares learning across knowledge levels. For example: He has spoken specifically about the interlink between operations and a social-ecological health at the DEFF Management, Research and Planning Forum, and contextually about the cross-ministerial disjunct between land and water management in governance research planning meetings (Palmer et al. 2022).	Mark’s practical and organisational knowledge translates to agency in operational planning and implementation of landscape restoration at several scales and influences national planning directions.	Mark’s growing integration of operational practical knowledge, and conceptual understanding of the tight feedbacks between people and ecosystems has increased his stature in influential government contexts.

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