Exploring expansive learning and co-management in the uMzimvumbu catchment

South Africa is a water-stressed country which is currently confronting numerous water challenges which include security of supply, degradation of ecological infrastructure, poor landscape governance and resource pollution. These are compounded by built infrastructure, which is ageing, an increasing population and the impact of climate change. South Africa’s water issues are influenced by a myriad of factors such as weather patterns, governance issues, historical apartheid policies, structural integrity of ecological and built infrastructure, and general provision of services. The most vulnerable members of society usually positioned in low-income communities are the ones who mostly bear the brunt of these harsh conditions. To address water insecurities and challenges, South Africa has defined several Strategic Water Source Areas (SWSAs), which are important for water security in South Africa. The Living Catchments Project (LCP) is a collaborative project, situated in four catchments in South Africa, with the aim to strengthen the enabling environment for the governance of water in South Africa’s strategic water resource areas. The central focus of the LCP is on co-learning and co-creation through communities of practice in order to enable, collaborate, and amplify the practice of transformative social learning and improve the policy advice practice and engagement with the water sector to contribute to the Water Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Roadmap. This study is positioned in the LCP, which is also a case study for transformative innovation policy and Just Transitioning in South Africa. The aim of this study was to address the need for more substantive understanding of learning in co-management, and the evaluation of such learning, which was identified as a gap in the scientific literature, and which was confirmed through policy review. The study set out to explore expansive learning and co-management in the uMzimvubu catchment, which is one of the SWSAs in South Africa and forms part of the LCP, which in turn is part of the Transformation Innovation Policy Consortium’s cases of Just Transitioning. Cultural History Activity Theory (CHAT) was the foundational theory of this research, with a particular focus on 3rd generation activity analysis (Engeström, 1987), and formative intervention methodology, in which I was positioned as a formative interventionist researcher. I used individual interviews, focus group interviews, field observations, and Change Laboratory methods to identify activity systems, the shared object of activity, and to engage multi-voiced participants in resolution of contradictions to expand their learning. The study also identified indicators of learning relevant to co-management in a LCPs context. Monitoring of learning occurred in two different phases; before the expansive learning process (A-view), and after the expansive learning process (B-view). The Value Creation Framework tool adapted from Wenger et al. (2011) was used to identify indicators of learning. This study shows that the object of co-management of water resources in a catchment can be enhanced through learning platforms and processes that are collaborative and expansive. One of the study’s contributions to new knowledge lies in relation to the expansive learning process and how it expanded the learning around co-management in a Living Catchments Project context. A second contribution of the study shows that the expansive learning process embarked on qualitatively changed the nature of the indicators of learning in the catchment. A better set of indicators was attained following the expansive learning process, which are more aligned with the nature of transformative social learning. The study’s contributions can be summarised as offering insights into learning processes for co-management, as well as evaluation of these learning processes. Although the contributions emerging from this study may be at niche level innovation in the framing of Just Transitions, they have a potential to inform other catchments, where multi-actors are working together on co-management of water resources to secure water provision, as was the case for the uMzimvubu catchment communities who participated in this study.