Phases of the study

The research process was divided in two phases: investigating and expanding phases (see Table 3).

4.3.3.1 Investigation phase

The investigation phase of the study responded to the first two research questions:

 What learning takes place among different stakeholder groups in the context of fisheries co-management that influences co-management practices?

 What are the learning and co-management practices that can be expanded in and through learning? (See section 1.7.3)

In the investigation phase I used a number of methods and techniques and these included: document analysis, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and observations. This phase focussed on what different stakeholders in fisheries co-management learn from

each other, how they learn and also why they learn whatever they come across as they meet to discuss their fishing experiences. My starting point was the contextual profile data, where I did some interviews and focus group discussions to understand what was happening in the co-management programme and the issues around the implementation of co-management. The contextual profile process revealed the various systems in which stakeholders in the co- management operated and how they shared information within their systems. According to Sawchuk (2009), CHAT offers an explanation of learning through activity that helps to develop understanding of workplace learning, and in the investigation phase I concentrated on identifying existing processes of learning within these activity systems, which I later drew on to expand the learning across activity systems in the expansive phase (see section 4.3.3.2 below).

An important part of the investigation phase involved clarifying and capturing details of the different activity systems and how they were related to each other and the shared object. As explained in Chapter 3, I used Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) analytical tools to identify the main activity systems and produce a description and understanding of the activity systems and the multi-voiced nature of the activity systems involving different stakeholders. The CHAT units of analysis (as described in section 4.2.3 above) were used to identify the main activity systems. This initial careful analysis of the activity systems identified in both sites of this study revealed that the interaction of the elements within and across different activity systems have historical and emergent tensions and contradictions. These tensions are internal to specific activity systems and are therefore significant to the boundary crossing process of encountering a shared object as explained in third generation activity theory (see section 3.2.4, and Chapter 6), which I engaged in the expansive phase of the study (see below).

In this phase, a number of activity systems were identified in Lake Malombe and the south- east arm of Lake Malawi: a) Lake Malombe – fishing community activity system and government activity system. b) South-east arm of Lake Malawi – fishing community activity system, extension and research activity system and Fisheries College activity system. A brief introduction to the research participant groups involved in the activity systems that were engaged in the investigation phase follows, with further in-depth discussion on the activity systems, and their learning presented in Chapters 5, 6, and 7.

4.3.3.1.1 Lake Malombe Activity Systems

The fishing community activity system comprises gear owners, crew members, fish traders, fish processors, traditional leaders and people who are doing fish related businesses which are based in the areas where fishing activities take place. Also within the fishing community

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activity system there are extension agents who are based in the areas where these activities take place and research officers who come to the areas for various research activities. Their core activity is managing fishing livelihoods.

The government activity system comprises government officers who are locally based in the areas, others who are from outside but come to work in the areas as well as those who are from other ministries or departments or NGOs who identify themselves as people working for the government. Their core activity is managing the fishery.

4.3.3.1.2 South-east arm of Lake Malawi activity systems

The fishing community activity system comprises gear owners, crew members (from commercial and artisanal sectors), fish traders, fish processors, and traditional leaders, church leaders, those from other community institutions and those doing businesses related to fisheries or those whose businesses depend on the fishery and are based along fish landing beaches. Their core activity is managing fishing livelihoods.

The government activity system is composed of local extension agents from areas where the activity systems exit, researchers undertaking research activities in the areas, other field officers doing various extension activities who sometimes work with the communities in other developmental activities, BVCs, traditional leaders and others from the district assembly. Their core activity is managing the fishery with reference to policy.

The Fisheries College activity system is composed of college lecturers and students who interact with the fishing communities doing different research programmes and also during the attachment period where students spend two to three months with the fishing communities. Their core activity is learning management and extension practices relevant to the fishery.

Peal and Wilson (2003) described an activity system as consisting of a group of people of any size pursuing a specific activity in a purposeful way. The investigation phase was therefore based on interactions with people within the identified activity systems.

4.3.3.2 Expansive learning phase

The expansive learning phase of the study responds to the third and fourth research questions:  How can such learning be expanded amongst key stakeholders?

 How can expansive learning in co-management contexts inform the development of extension and training models, curriculum and approaches? (see section 1.7.3)

The expansive phase of the study also provides insight into question 1, viewed from an expansive learning perspective (see Chapters 6 and 7).

In this phase the Development Work Research methodology was used to facilitate an expansive learning process to allow stakeholders to debate and deliberate issues identified from the mirror data in change laboratory workshops (see section 4.2.1). Intervention / change laboratory workshops were set up using guidelines and tools from CHAT to enable research participants to jointly resolve selected contradictions in the two cases. The intention was to create a learning environment in which stakeholders could use the contradictions in and between their activity systems as fertile ground for learning. The approach also sought to enable research participants to analyse the historical contradictions and in a participatory manner trace the sources of the contradictions in fisheries co-management with an aim of building agency among stakeholders to reflect on their practices, and through this, develop their shared object (fisheries co-management).

The second phase of the expansive learning process involved a collective reflection workshop (called a ‘way forward’ workshop) where the researcher and the participants from the two sites (Lake Malombe and south-east arm of Lake Malawi came together to discuss the way forward after the modelling of solutions to the tensions and contradictions in the last intervention workshops (see section 7.5). During the way forward workshop, participants assigned each other responsibilities to drive the modelled solutions into action, effectively constituting an agency mobilisation and commitment process. The use of CHAT epistemologically provided both explanatory and intervention space, to improve organisational practice through interpreting practice as activity, and exploring the link between the event and context (Blackler et al., 2000).

The table that follows shows the design of the phases of the study and provides some explanation of the activities which were conducted in the research process.

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Table 4.1: Research design in phases (investigation and expansive)

Phases 1 Research activities

Investigation phase

 Contextual profiling to identify research sites and activity systems, and to examine some perspectives on histories of the existing learning interactions which take place within and between interacting activity systems that share the object of co- management of the fishery

 Develop deeper understanding of main activity systems that are engaged with the shared object of fisheries co-management which include fishing communities, government extension and research officers and college lecturers at the fisheries training college and explore how they are approaching the common object of fisheries co-management

 Analysis of rules, mediating tools, subject, objects, division of labour (and interactions between these components of an activity system) of the different activity systems to understand how they interact within and across the activity systems and also how the stakeholders in the activity systems work together on the shared object of co-management

 Identify tensions and contradictions that are arising within and between activity systems to see how these reflect new possibilities for expanding learning in co-management and participation in fisheries resource management

Reported in Chapters 5 and 6

2. Expansive phase

 Expansive learning engaging the interacting activity systems in an expansive learning process and through change laboratory workshops using mirror data generated in draft form from the phase one research process. This helped to develop recommended solutions to fisheries co-management tensions and contradictions in order to find possible ways that can be used by the participants in the activity systems to enhance the co-management in the two sites

 Critically review the proposed solutions with participants of the activity systems and investigate how these expansive social learning processes are potentially facilitating agency for co- management, and how these processes of engagement can inform extension and training programmes