Motives Shaping the Crossing and Redrawing of Boundaries in Complex Multi-Functional Land Use Developments. Insights From a Case Study of a Regional Climate Adaptation Initiative

In delta regions scarcity of space urges governments to combine climate adaptation measures with other economic, ecologic and social objectives in spatial developments. This requires an integrated approach across sectors and involves actors from various governmental, private and civic domains who need to act collectively and balance their interests, objectives and frames. Integration postulates the ability to overcome established boundaries between public, private and civic governance systems. At the same time the idea of effective integration is complicated by the desire or need of actors and organizations to maintain and defend these boundaries. In such multifunctional developments actors both challenge, cross, maintain, and redraw these (often ambiguous and overlapping) boundaries. In this paper we study processes of boundary making and the motives that shape different boundary actions in multifunctional climate adaptation initiatives. We define boundaries as enacted demarcations of people, materials and/or practices. We address the question why actors involved in such multifunctional developments in the one situation have the need or desire to draw boundaries and in others to cross them, or do both simultaneously. We do so with a case study of a regional climate adaptation initiative; the Deltaplan Hoge Zandgronden. This is a regional collaborative project aimed at a climate robust water supply and spatial planning in the south of The Netherlands. We map at the micro-level the dynamics of how actors draw, cross, challenge and redraw boundaries during the decision-making process, and examine how actors give meaning to developed demarcations and provide rationalizations why boundaries are drawn or overcome and shaped differently over time (cf. Tilly 2005). The paper concludes with a reflection upon the question how such motives behind boundaries helps us to explain the evolving coexistence of fragmentation and integration in concrete adaptation projects. Tilly, C., Identities, Boundaries & Social Ties. Paradigm Publishers, 2005.