Place-embedded agency: Exploring knowledge– place connections for enabling plurality in governance of social– ecological systems

1. Including different forms of knowledges and views in decision-making is crucial to managing the complexity of social– ecological systems (SES) in ways that are inclusive and embrace diversity. 2. Sense of place scholarship can explain subjectivity in SES; however, it has hardly been considered together with the literature on knowledge processes, over-looking the epistemic dimension of sense of place and its potential to shed light on the roles and views of individuals in respect to natural resources and their management. 3. This paper explores how local knowledge and place-belonging (as a form of sense of place) intersect, and what kinds of implications these knowledge– place connections


| INTRODUC TI ON
The complexity of social-ecological systems (SES) requires the representation and inclusion of disparate views in their management and governance.This is often approached from the perspective of how to include multiple ways of knowing into decision-making (Clark et al., 2016;Norström et al., 2020;West et al., 2019).It is indeed widely agreed in the SES literature and resilience-based scholarship that generating meaningful and legitimate solutions to address wicked social-ecological sustainability challenges requires weaving together different knowledge systems, such as expert, scientific domains, and local and indigenous knowledges (e.g.Ballard et al., 2008;Rathwell et al., 2015;Tengö et al., 2014Tengö et al., , 2017)).Equally, environmental governance can be framed as epistemic processes encompassing various ways of knowing and power relations (van der Molen, 2018).
Analysing the potential for pluralism and contestation of views and knowledge claims in knowledge co-production is essential to improving governance of ecosystems and decision-making that is both socially just and ecologically sustainable (Berbés-Blázquez et al., 2016;Caniglia et al., 2020;Wyborn et al., 2020).
Both SES and environmental governance scholarships emphasise the need for new forms of knowledge interactions which transform the current fragmented, disconnected and hegemonic knowledge systems into those that embrace diversity, justice and reflexivity and enable meeting the rapidly changing societal needs of science and society (see Fazey et al., 2020).Understanding these interactions requires situating various forms and systems of knowledge within specific contexts and places (Caniglia et al., 2020;Norström et al., 2020;Raymond et al., 2021), including the socio-political contexts that shape knowledge processes and their outcomes (van Kerkhoff & Pilbeam, 2017).It is thus crucial to engage with situated and contextualised inquiries into knowledge, meanings and agency in environmental decision-making and SES research (Boonstra, 2016;Cote & Nightingale, 2012;Stone-Jovicich, 2015) and the subjective and personal nature of knowledge production embedded in values and the contextual factors of individuals and society (Raymond, Brown, & Weber, 2010;Raymond, Fazey, et al., 2010).This builds towards pluralist collaborative and participatory governance processes that recognise the inherently political nature of knowledge (Turnhout, 2018).
However, some recent examples illustrate the difficulty in situating knowledge and grasping the plurality in research practice: Varghese and Crawford (2020) show that researchers do not often define what is meant by different knowledge systems in a study context.Stepanova et al. (2019) instead argue that researchers approach different ways of knowing in a pre-determined manner in the natural resources management literature.O'Connor et al.'s (2021) case studies in Australia and South Africa indicate that various actors in coproduction processes, such as environmental managers, are often treated as a homogeneous group, ignoring their diverse expertise and knowledge sources.Because knowledge interactions are at the heart of the SES management (Berkes, 2009;Berkes et al., 2003), their embeddedness in a place and the interrelated subjectivity merit further attention to facilitate a broader inclusion of actors and their cultural and political perspectives in management of such systems (Castro, 2021;Cockburn et al., 2018;Turnhout et al., 2020).
Approaching the interface between knowledge and place, place-based research indicates the importance of further exploration of place in relation to knowledge, the agency of individuals, interactions between different actors and the situatedness of actors in a SES (Balvanera, Calderón-Contreras, et al., 2017;Cockburn et al., 2018).Ingalls et al. (2019) argue that the identification of the 'desirable state' of a SES is a complex process characterised by histories, power dynamics, and various place meanings and narratives, which requires analysing the subjective and normative dimensions of SES within specific places (Stedman, 2016).
On these lines, the notion of sense of place in SES research is gaining ground as a way to deal with the subjectivity, conflicting visions and multiple meanings that an SES involves (Ingalls & Stedman, 2016;Masterson et al., 2017;Masterson, Enqvist, et al., 2019;Stedman, 2016).Broadly, sense of place refers to the individual and shared feelings and emotions that a place evokes (Creswell, 2004) or to a process through which an individual or a group derives meanings, beliefs, symbols, values and feelings from a particular place, which can change over time (Chapin & Knapp, 2015).
An exploration of sense of place enables a shift from co-management rhetoric to a deeper consideration of the equity of distribution of gains or losses across a community with respect to ecosystem management (Masterson, Spierenburg, & Tengö, 2019).It contributes to developing solutions to sustainability issues taking account of people's motivations and what they care about (Masterson et al., 2017).
Understanding knowledge interactions in ecosystem governance could thus benefit from taking into account the subjective and sensibilities of place, which are not only grounded in one's knowledge of place, but also in the deeper cognitive and affective meanings linked to people-place relationships (Raymond et al., 2017).
In this study, we focus on place-belonging as a specific dimension of sense of place, which enables a descriptive exploration of connections to a place through the 'feeling of home' formed through social and affective as well as material and physical aspects of place (Raffaetà & Duff, 2013;Tomaney, 2015).To date, the knowledge processes literature and sense of place scholarship have hardly been considered together to unpack ecosystem governance dynamics (Castro, 2021).The article has three objectives: (i) to explore the multiple perceptions of local knowledge as situated in a particular place; (ii) to understand and map the knowledgeplace connections of diverse actors and (iii) investigate how these knowledge-place connections may shape actor agency in a SES.
We hypothesise that focusing on knowledge-place connections may improve the management of the contestations between actors who may draw upon different epistemic (building on Hakkarainen et al., 2020) as well as relational understanding of people-place interactions (building on Masterson, Spierenburg, & Tengö, 2019).
We draw on relational understanding of agency in which individuals are nested in social structures and emotional responses from which agency, capacity to act, emerges (Burkitt, 2016).Ideally, the place-based emphasis in multiple epistemic connections and the diverse positions of people enable movement towards inclusive and collaborative approaches to ecosystem governance from technocratic top-down decision-making based on formal expertise (Manzo et al., 2021).
To address our research objectives, we take a case study approach and examine the transnational High Coast/Kvarken Archipelago UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site located on each side of the Gulf of Bothnia, the northern extension of the Baltic Sea, in Sweden and Finland.Claims that local knowledge has been overlooked in the governance of the site have been made, particularly on the Finnish side, both by local actors and in previous research (see Svels, 2017).Simultaneously, the transboundary management of the World Heritage Site is developing.The first shared management plan is currently being formulated (2020)(2021)(2022).The exploration of diverse perceptions in this context becomes relevant for understanding how differing and possibly conflicting views can be taken into account so as not to reproduce unequal power dynamics (Ingalls & Stedman, 2016).By including both sides of the World Heritage Site, we seek to contribute to the discussion on knowledge-place connections in cross-boundary contexts and pave the way for possible transnational learning.

| Conceptualisations of local knowledge
Local knowledge is referred to in various ways in academic discussions.Broad definitions of local knowledge emphasise the embeddedness of knowledge in certain places.Pilgrim et al. (2008) identify the interactions with the land as the central feature of local knowledge, which can be eroded by either physical or mental disconnectedness from it.Social and cultural norms, values and institutions are also considered to shape local knowledge (Blowers et al., 2005).Raymond, Fazey, et al. (2010) suggest that local knowledge can be generated in various ways, including through traditional cultural rules and norms, more recent human-environment interactions and personal experience.However, previous research has merely focused on understanding scientific perceptions of local knowledge instead of local inhabitants' views of the concept (Taylor & de Loë, 2012).
Local knowledge is often understood as a knowledge system, definitions of which can vary between researchers (Varghese & Crawford, 2020).Conventionally, local knowledge systems are seen to be based on the experience and practices of non-scientists adapted to local ecosystems (Taylor & de Loë, 2012).Indigenous and local knowledge systems (ILK) are often treated together as one concept, generally defined as 'a cumulative body of knowledge, practice and belief, evolving and governed by adaptive processes and handed down and across (through) generations by cultural transmission, about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their environment' (Berkes, 2008 as cited in Tengö et al., 2017).Local ecological knowledge (LEK) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) are parts of ILK.Both LEK and TEK are types of knowledge of a specific group about their local ecosystems, with the difference that TEK has historical and cultural continuity of resource use, whereas LEK presents more recent ecological knowledge and might be intermingled with scientific and practical knowledge (Olsson & Folke, 2001).
These concepts invite combining the values and beliefs of communities with local and expert scientific knowledge to enhance the legitimacy of decision-making (Simpson et al., 2015) and implement culturally appropriate programmes through intertwining culturally grounded knowledge production with generalised knowledge production (Sterling et al., 2017).Following these lines, Merçon et al. (2019) propose that the biocultural paradigm for sustainability research and policy spheres could serve to identify ways of conceiving and experiencing nature and their cultural embeddedness.
However, the authors argue that SES discourse about sustainability is still largely quantitative and academically orientated, and that the typical ecological approach to assessing system dynamics results in a paucity of attention to power relations and social inequalities embedded in SES (Merçon et al., 2019).
Acknowledging that there are many entry points to knowledge in sustainability research (Apetrei et al., 2021), we consider knowledge here as a process of simultaneously knowing and acting which has a particular focus on applying expertise (Griffin et al., 1999).
Local knowledge is created in relation to a place, yet it is shaped by various individual experiences and relations to other knowledges (Nazarea, 2006;Raymond, Fazey, et al., 2010).Even though knowledge is locally or regionally maintained, it is in constant interaction with other forms of knowledges (Tengö et al., 2017).It is therefore dynamic and not static, but is 'kept alive and meaningful in the local' (Castro, 2021, 267).
The following section explores sense of place and how belonging offers a means of understanding the nuances in local knowledge.

| Contextualising local knowledge through place-belonging as a form of sense of place
The sense of place literature is rich and includes multiple (meta)theories and interrelated concepts from fields such as psychology and human geography developed over many decades of research.
This study draws upon the emerging systemic meta-theory, which highlights the importance of place as a social-ecological assemblage affected by and affecting people who are embedded in places (Williams & Miller, 2021).Within this tradition, Stedman (2016) proposes that a sense of place can help to address the subjectivity of perceptions and actions of processes such as transitions, tipping points and transformations typical of SES research by drawing attention to the creation of meaning and the plurality of meanings in a society.
Here we focus on two important elements of the sense of place: place meanings and the interrelated concept of place-belonging.
Place meanings refer to descriptive attributes of place, symbolic meanings or place characters and answer questions such as what a place is like or what it is (Masterson et al., 2017).They are informed by diverse place-based experiences grounded in physical, personal, social, biological and ecological features (Masterson et al., 2017) or the interrelations among them (Raymond et al., 2017).
Place-belonging relates to place meanings as characterising concerns of 'feeling at home' and 'feeling safe' (Tomaney, 2015), which reflect the descriptive and symbolic attributes of place meanings (Masterson et al., 2017).Hence, place meanings can result in belonging (Castro, 2021;Saar & Palang, 2009).Belonging entails social and affective achievement that is linked to material and physical territories (Raffaetà & Duff, 2013) as involvement in our environment-'being-in-the-world' (Easthope, 2009).
Belonging also constitutes a defining factor of place identity thought of as feelings about a specific physical setting and symbolic connections to place that define who we are (Raymond, Brown, & Weber, 2010).Consequently, measures of place identity include statements about belonging (Hernández Bernardo et al., 2010).Belonging is referred to as 'the glue linking place and identity', which involves social factors and the physical structures of a place (McCreanor et al., 2006).Identity through belonging is also formed through collective processes of loyalty, solidarity and senses of affinity that shape the ways in which an individual is included in and identifies with the social and physical aspects of a place (Pollini, 2005).
Place-belonging as a form of the sense of place is used in this study because it enables a descriptive exploration of connections to a place in relation to perceptions of local knowledge.Like local knowledge, belonging may also be experienced in relation to several places but it exists in relation to the local world (Tomaney, 2015), and is not a given but a dynamic and fluid process (Savage et al., 2005).It implies the human emotional need to be part of a group or something bigger than themselves (Escalera-Reyes, 2020) and can be approached from the perspectives of inclusiveness and exclusiveness in a place (Ralph & Staeheli, 2011), featuring states of belonging and unbelonging (Savage et al., 2005).Belonging relates to power dynamics in that dominant groups can define its terms (Trudeau, 2006) and can thus together with consideration of knowledge processes reveal how and whose views and voices are included in decision-making about SES.Given that sense of belonging is associated with different forms of place experiences, subjective, social, affective and physical (Raffaetà & Duff, 2013;Ralph & Staeheli, 2011), it is possible that one's perceptions of local knowledge, formed in relation to human-environmental relationships, experiences and cultural norms (Raymond, Brown, & Weber, 2010;Raymond, Fazey, et al., 2010), are also informed by their place-belonging.

| Case Study description
The Kvarken Archipelago (Finland) and the High Coast (Sweden) are located on each side of the Gulf of Bothnia in the northern extension of the Baltic Sea.Together, the areas form the High Coast/ Kvarken Archipelago transnational World Natural Heritage site.
World Heritage status was first issued to the Swedish site in 2000, and then to the Finnish site in 2006, both because of their geological uniqueness.Both areas have the highest rates of isostatic uplift (land rise) in the world.Socio-economic patterns in the areas are similar: traditional farming and fishing communities are transforming their livelihoods to include tourism and nature protection, depopulation is taking place and work and education require commuting or outmigration (Svels, 2015).The High Coast World Heritage site is located

| Data collection
A case study design (Yin, 2014) was applied to allow for in-depth analysis of a phenomenon in a real-world context.Qualitative studies have been recognised and are essential to explore less wellunderstood and emergent aspects of the sense of place: They have particular strength in revealing power dynamics and conflicting perspectives (Manzo & Pinto de Carvalho, 2021).Qualitative data collection was informed by social constructivism and phenomenology to understand how people create meaning in a place and make sense of their relationship to this place through experience (Bailey et al., 2016;Seamon, 2018).The qualitative approach we chose is not intended to generalise findings but rather to provide for in-depth understanding of the topics investigated.
The study follows the ethical procedure of the Natural Resources Institute Finland and the ethics review was approved by In phase two, we invited the participants involved in the January workshops to be interviewed (N = 24).The exploratory nature of the study prevented us from applying a strict sampling criterion but we invited all willing workshop participants to be interviewed to capture their wide range of views.We made connections with four additional interviewees based on snowball and purposive sampling (Bernard, 2006) with the aim of reaching actors working in the various World Heritage municipalities as well as to capture the more critical views of actors who would not participate in events organised by the official local governance bodies.
We conducted qualitative interviews (N = 28) of between 30 and 90 min duration in Finnish or Swedish with actors who had professional and/or a personal connections to the area.The interviews were flexible and exploratory.We intentionally kept the questions open to capture unexpected views that were not anticipated by the theoretical background, following the abductive reasoning of data collection (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012).The interviews involved questions about actors' perceptions of local knowledge and its uses, knowledge processes and participation in the governance of the site as well as their personal history in relation to the place, place connections, such as their favourite places, the importance of these places and their meanings.Acknowledging that it is difficult to ask questions about abstract topics such as knowledge, the subject was probed using multiple questions such  1).All the interviewees either lived in the actual World Heritage Site or in the World Heritage municipalities.

| Analysis
We analysed the data thematically to keep the coding process flexible and to be able to create a rich and detailed account of data (Braun & Clarke, 2006), generating patterns under the three research objectives of this article.We conducted several rounds of thematic coding using the Atlas.tiqualitative data analysis software including compiling the data, creating and combining codes and themes and finally interpreting them (Castleberry & Nolen, 2018).The coding not only focused on the most dominant views, but also less frequently cited perspectives to capture the variety of important aspects in relation to the research objectives (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
We compiled the typology (Findings: Table 3) of the repeated data patterns through the coding process.The typology was formed when the coding process showed how local knowledge was constantly discussed in relation to personal history in the area and a feeling of belonging as well as to other actors from whom patterns in ways of approaching local knowledges could be identified.In addition to these aspects of place-belonging that emerged in relation to local knowledge, we used the origins of actors and length of residency to organise the typology because it has been shown to be a strong predictor of forming people-place bonds (Lewicka, 2011).
Building on the notion of insideness and outsideness of a place (Relph, 1976;Seamon, 2018) and the possibility of experiencing

| Perceptions of local knowledge
The interviewees were asked to describe how they generally related to the idea of local knowledge.The answers present several aspects ranging from knowledge about nature, culture, history or the societal context to general understandings of the surrounding place.In this section, we first present the different general perceptions of local knowledge and then we specify the views of actors on what their own local knowledge included.We provide an overview of the themes identified across all the interviewees-whether actors inside or outside formal decision-making processes-and then conclude by reflecting upon some differences encountered between these two groups.
Over a third of the interviewees ( Both quotes illustrate the recognition of importance of historical and cultural knowledge as reflected in the general views of local knowledge as well as the difficulty in gaining this type of knowledge.
This was not necessarily related to the time lived in the area, as considered in the second quote, as a similar aspect was noted in the first quote from someone who had lived her whole life there.Furthermore, social and societal knowledge were more prominent when actors considered their own local knowledge compared to the general views on local knowledge.
Comparing views between actors formally connected to decisionmaking processes and other actors (Table 1: Formally connected: actors in state, county, municipalities) revealed that all the actors had fairly similar views on local knowledge generally, emphasising cultural-historical aspects and nature-based livelihoods.Similarly, when actors reflected on their own local knowledge, place-related aspects and local nature knowledge were more frequently mentioned by both groups than cultural-historical aspects.The actors in the governance bodies more explicitly expressed various degrees of local knowledge that extended over a municipality or region, as well as the social aspects, such as identity and networks, whereas the other actors described a more intimate relationship with nature, such as connections with the sea, and also reflected on knowledge passed on through previous generations who had lived in the area.
The formally connected actors might have expressed their perceptions more through their official positions in the interviews more than as 'local inhabitants', highlighting the various layers to relating to local knowledge.This might also be partly due to differences in backgrounds and in the time respondents had lived in the area.
However, the connections with local knowledge and place varied in both groups (formally connected and other actors) and even within actors who were originally from the area, illustrating their heterogeneity.In the following section, we look more deeply into the placebelonging of actors and what implications it had for perceptions of local knowledge.

| Links between local knowledge and place-belonging
There were obvious differences in how local knowledge was discussed in relation to the interviewees' own place-belonging.Local knowledge was constantly reflected-in varying ways-in the time people had lived in the area and other inhabitants and their knowledge (Table 3).The physical place also shaped perceptions, particularly in Finland, where those who lived in the archipelago were sometimes only referred to as the 'locals' with actual local knowledge.
Five different patterns for the types of connections between perceptions of local knowledge and place-belonging were identifiable from the interviews (Table 3), illustrating the differing All the different types of knowledge-place connections were also evident within the people working in the governance bodies, such as in the municipalities and county and state authorities, which highlights the varying ways to relate to local knowledge and considerations of how it is used and gained by people who are more often exclusively related to expert/managerial knowledge.For example, a person working for the state, feeling highly connected to the area (related to position 1), described the importance of having and using her own local knowledge and reflected this in relation to the transnational nature of the World Heritage Site: [ These positions present subjective views on the knowledge-place connections of individuals, which shape interaction as illustrated in the next section.The different positions not only indicate connections between perceptions of local knowledge and place-belonging, but also indicate views on who is perceived to be allowed to present certain knowledge systems and related expertise, and challenge rigid divisions of actors based on their official roles.However, it is important to note that a few of the interviewees did not approach local knowledge through place-belonging, considering it as an inseparable aspect of every inhabitant in the area, at least to some degree.This view could not readily be situated in the typology as local knowledge here becomes a generic universal feature of being, not expressed through gradients of subjective belonging to a place through time or social connections.

| Implications for knowledge-based interactions and action
Different knowledge-place connections shaped actors' interactions and potential to affect the area.Certain tensions between actors inside and outside governance processes were particularly linked to the questions of nature protection in the area, which was often talked about together with the World Heritage Site, both in Finland and Sweden, even though the World Heritage status does not imply regulations directly.The contested views were manifested in three main ways: (i) how 'locals' and their knowledge were perceived by the authorities, (ii) how requests for collaboration from the authorities were perceived by 'locals' and (iii) what kinds of expectations of expertise-and who were recognised as experts-were entertained by various actors.
The tension or disparity between knowledge and expertise was experienced from various angles.For example, one interviewee, a resident in the World Heritage area for 10 years, mentioned being surprised to be asked to share his knowledge with the County Administration.However, he also questioned the knowledge presented by the officials, relating his expertise to his own observations: On the other hand, a Finnish interviewee, originally from the area and with family history in the area, expressed frustration about the type of collaboration of knowledge requested, often rather academic, which did not match the knowledge he would like to bring into the discussion.He described the reduction of his agency despite his long relationship with the area as illustrated in the following quote: We (M, Local organisation, Finland) On these lines, another interviewee in Finland, also originally from the area, ascribed these tensions in knowledge to what authorities draw on and how the experiences of the actual people living in the area are not taken into account: Nature questions are quite special […] For example, all the people here consider cormorants as an invasive species, biologically it is not an invasive species but it is considered as such.So, one should take this experience and maybe react to the authority of this perspective.
(M, Local organisation, Finland) The quote also reflects the larger fundamental conflicts on the Finnish side when it comes to environmental protection which started with the top-down implementation of Natura 2000.On a similar matter, a municipal politician reflects on the legitimacy of statements made by people outside the area raising the question of degrees of expertise and the importance of place connections having agency in questions in certain areas: It is common here in our regions that people think that some nature organizations in Tampere and Helsinki [bigger cities outside the study area] have their own opin-ions… But it is difficult to understand the relevance of some of these here.These people, who have never been here in their lives, have strong opinions about how should it be here.There should be a balance between having influence and being a living part of it… and that is not always the case.(M, Municipality, Finland) However, another perspective, from a person who had recently moved to the area, highlights the possibility of place-belonging leading to making over-confident knowledge claims: The fact that one is from here already gives an insider engagement.But I also think it can give false self-confidence only because one is originally from here (…) I see that to truly understand things there also needs to be scientific knowledge but maybe I don't think it is the only knowledge that is needed.(M, Museum, Finland).
An often presented view, appearing in both countries, was the feeling that the authorities were not including the lived experience in the place or local understanding in the governance of the World Heritage Site, for example, knowledge about the tourism industry, its impacts and needs, or regarding environmental regulations.
Some of the interviewees expressed concerns about the environment and ecological sustainability of the area and how it had been changing because of streams of tourists, feeling unable to affect the current development.This was particularly apparent on the Swedish side where there are more visitors to the World Heritage Site than on the Finnish side.It was thought that the authorities were not doing enough to protect the environment because they were prioritising income from tourist flows, and that they might not be aware of the impact of tourist flows on the environment at the local level.
There was a difference in how some authorities in Finland and  A number of factors were mentioned as obstacles to inclusion of different views and forms of knowledge in nature management and conservation in both Finland and Sweden.These included a lack of suitable arenas and platforms for open discussion, a lack of resources and over-emphasis on natural sciences, as well as a lack of interest among inhabitants in participating in such structures and difficulty in reaching interested people when there were opportunities to participate.Hence, although greater inclusivity and participation by local actors was seen as an ideal, the agency of actors beyond formal decision-making processes was reduced by lack of both opportunity and their own interest and the feeling of being able and having the right knowledge to contribute.It is also important to note that participation in itself does not lead to an ability to influence, but depends on whether the exchanged or co-created knowledge is actually applied to action and implementation beyond a participatory process or is knowledge that only relates to the decisionmaker's agenda being applied.This tension becomes evident in the following quote: We try to take this [local knowledge] into account, and yes, we do take it into account.But not in the way they ['locals'] would like to.That's where the contradictions emerge from.But if we didin't ask for this knowledge from them at all, it would be an even bigger scandal.
(F, State, Finland) A strong narrative of a conflict between authorities and local inhabitants was particularly apparent on the Finnish side, even when the respondent did not consider him or herself to be part of this conflict.
At the same time, many interviewees had neutral or even positive attitudes towards the governance of the area, which demonstrates the importance of promoting nuanced views of knowledge interfaces that reach beyond the conflicts and tensions that have dominated and sometimes even paralysed discussions of the management and governance of the World Heritage Site.knowledge that runs beyond ecological aspects or is directly related to environmental or landscape management extending it to the cultural diversity (Merçon et al., 2019;Balvanera, Calderón-Contreras, et al., 2017), and to more holistic understandings of the concept of intertwined social and ecological spheres (West et al., 2020).We thus argue that while it is important to understand the significance and definitions of forms of knowledges presented by researchers (Stepanova et al., 2019), the understandings of a variety of knowledge holders outside of academia are essential to culturally situate knowledge production (Arora-Jonsson, 2016).Exploring the different perceptions of knowledges can help to shed light on power dynamics in the decision-making of a SES in which cultural identity, local knowledge and expert science create a political and contested context (Sjölander-Lindqvist, 2008).

| The multiple perceptions of local knowledge in a place
We found that different aspects were related to the generic idea of local knowledge when actors talked about their own local knowledge, which less often had linkages to historical knowledge or nature-based livelihoods among the group of interviewees.This highlights the subjectivity of knowledge formulation beyond a narrow focus on general meanings of local knowledge (Raymond, Brown, & Weber, 2010;Raymond, Fazey, et al., 2010).

| Unpacking knowledge-place connections
The typology created (Table 3) maps knowledge-place connections beyond the assumed roles of actors as locals or authorities allowing for the diversity of different positions and adding to the plurality of ways to understand the sense of place (Raymond et al., 2021).
Considered through local knowledge, different positions on a place can be seen as fluid and can change over time (Di Masso et al., 2019).
They are not necessarily dependent on the origin of an actor.For example, growing up in the area did not necessarily lead to a feeling of relating to local knowledge, and by contrast, some actors considered that they had gained local knowledge despite not being originally from the area.This highlights the dynamic nature of local knowledge being shaped in interaction with other knowledge (Tengö et al., 2017); for example, formed through lived experience in a place and more formal knowledge sources.
However, time also formed an indicator that was reflected in the feeling of belonging and having a right to present local knowledge, particularly in cases where a person was not originally from the area.
The feelings of both belonging and unbelonging (Savage et al., 2005) are therefore also crucial for local knowledge processes.However, sometimes belonging through local knowledge is not even desirable for a person who wants to relate to place more through their official positions and related more formalised knowledge sources.The findings about knowledge-place connections further illustrate that there are plural epistemic ways to create a connection to a place (Castro, 2021), which is both a highly subjective and a social process that links to power dynamics.knowledge was evident among some actors with a strong sense of belonging, if the knowledge and decision did not have strong associations with the place and the realities of local people, or conflicted with the actors' existing knowledge of the place.The question of saliency, credibility and legitimacy of knowledge (Cash et al., 2002) can thus be considered to be shaped and navigated by peopleplace bonds.Biocultural approaches, embracing the place-based cultural perspective such as values, knowledges and needs (Sterling et al., 2017), are therefore crucial for local policy and management in the World Heritage Site to build trust in knowledge processes which enhance the mutual perceptions of legitimate decision-making (Cash et al., 2003;Clark et al., 2016).
Noted in this study and in the previous literature (Svels, 2015) is a general negative attitude towards any state regulations on the Finnish side of the World Heritage Site, which affects the governance efforts.As discussed by Masterson et al. (2017), social experiences such as particular roles and the social expectations of these roles and power dynamics form a sense of place in addition to individual experience.The expectations of particular roles as 'locals' or 'state agencies' seemed to amplify the tensions in the case study.
Local knowledge in Finland and Sweden was often sought from actors outside formal decision-making processes as long as it was nature-based and fitted the scientific format, leaving a feeling that other forms of local expertise were overlooked, which highlights the political nature of knowledge processes (Turnhout, 2018).However, in turn, actors working in the management were perceived by some other actors in terms of their official roles and not necessarily as equally locals embedded in place.Knowledge they presented was interpreted through local knowledge.Consequently, the right or burden of being a local, or of belonging (Trudeau, 2006), was sometimes attributed to only a few people with origins in the area, who the idea of a local knowledge system per se may be reduced to only some aspects, which suits the agendas pursued, or alternatively, are co-opted exclusively by the groups with strong place-belonging and identities (Trudeau, 2006) subjectivity of one's position and views regardless of their actor's roles.

| Towards place-embedded agency
As shown in this study, perceptions of local knowledge are informed by place-belonging, which enacted different forms of expertise and actor interactions.The existing knowledge of a place creates the means for interpretation of new knowledges and ideas in relation to the context (Castro, 2021;Hakkarainen et al., 2020), while different gradients of place-belonging shape the response of actors to a place through feelings and emotions (Escalera-Reyes, 2020).
Agency culminating in knowledge interactions (Burkitt, 2016; We concede that knowledge also needs to be more explicitly considered within the intertwined expressions of meanings, values and emotions to avoid technocratic perspectives and allow for diversity in ecosystem governance (Fazey et al., 2020;MacKinnon & Derickson, 2013).Knowledge is therefore only a partial entry point for unpacking the plurality in ecosystem governance, although focus on a place weaves knowledge into contested place meanings (Ingalls et al., 2019).Furthermore, we acknowledge that the typology of knowledge-place connections is an additional academic categorisation which frames understanding of diverse positions and different ways of knowing to a certain model.The concept of place-embedded agency derived from the typology might not be applicable in cases where knowledge processes occur at more universal levels in which actors' connections to one shared place do not form the prominent context for knowledge-interactions such as international expert bodies (e.g.IPBES, Future Earth, IPCC).Ultimately, place-embedded agency is an academic opening within a place-based research tradition (Balvanera, Calderón-Contreras, et al., 2017;Balvanera, Daw, et al., 2017), further bridging the sense of place and knowledge processes literatures for unpacking the plurality and subjectivity that is emerging as a critical aspect in ecosystem governance (Caniglia et al., 2020;Manzo et al., 2021).It thus requires further application and particularly operationalisation in various places and processes of ecosystem governance.

| CON CLUS IONS
The importance of including diverse views and forms of knowl- in the municipalities of Kramfors and Örnsköldsvik with c. 4500 inhabitants in the actual World Heritage area and the Kvarken archipelago is in the municipalities of Korsnäs, Malax, Korsholm, Vasa and Vorå with c. 2500 permanent inhabitants in the World Heritage site.UNESCO does not have executive power in the governance of these areas.In Sweden, governance is organised under the National Nature Heritage Board and the Environmental Protection Agency with the County Administration of Västernorrland County being the regional executive authority.In Finland, the World Heritage Site falls under the Ministry of Culture and Education and the Ministry of Environment and the executive power regionally belongs to Metsähallitus, the state authority that governs and manages stateowned water and land in Finland.The history of the top-down state regulation of the Finnish site led to a conflict between some local residents and the state agencies stemming from the implementation of the Natura 2000 areas in the early 2000.These strong divides are still manifest in the public discussion about the management and development of the area, which showcases the tensions over the agency of local actors in relation to the management bodies.
25758314, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10365 by Universiteit Gent, Wiley Online Library on [12/12/2022].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons Licensethe RECOMS MSC_ITN project ethics committee and the unit leader of the lead author.Written informed consent to participate was obtained from all the participants.Data collection involved two phases: participant observation and in-depth interviews.In phase one, the lead author conducted participant observation in two rounds of participatory workshops organised and hosted by the County Board of Västernorrland and Metsähallitus.The workshops were a part of an ongoing project (2018-2021), which aims at creating a new plan for nature-culture guidance in the World Heritage area.The workshops were open to anyone to participate.Participants included a wide range of people such as local entrepreneurs, municipality employees, museum and schools staff members and other inhabitants.Two workshops were held in October 2018 and three in January 2019, of which three were in Finland and two in Sweden.Participant observation served as a way to familiarise with the study context, gain insights into current issues and opinions, and make connections with actors in the area.

as:
Who has local knowledge in this area?What is local knowledge related to?Do you have local knowledge?What is your local knowledge related to?And, how have you gained this knowledge?The importance of place-belonging in respect to local knowledge emerged partly from these responses as local knowledge was constantly discussed in relation to belonging and perceptions of the area and other actors in the area.The interviewees included people working for the Finnish state Swedish county administrations and municipalities, including local politicians, active members of local organisations (such as local NGOs, village associations, land owner associations and the World Heritage Delegation on the Finnish side), people working in education and culture, local entrepreneurs and a tourism company (Table Resident more than 10 years, but not born in the area 6 TA B L E 1 Interviewee characteristics (N = 28) and their official connections to the World Heritage Site stages of belonging and unbelonging(Savage et al., 2005), we applied the notion of insidedness of actors' relationships to local knowledge as an organisational category to conceptualise the level of immersion to it through belonging to a place.
ways people can relate to local knowledge as embedded actors through place-belonging.There are differences in the relationship to local knowledge even among people who were born in the area (Positions 1-3) and those who had moved into the area more recently (Positions 4-5).Looked at through these different positions, we can see how place-belonging is entangled with the creation of attitude towards local knowledge.The first position follows the rather standardised view of local knowledge, in which local knowledge is gained through a long relationship to the place and through generations of passing on knowledge.People in this group feel highly entitled to both the place and knowledge.The second position adds a nuance to this view as it shows that a person who can feel strong belonging to the place attributes the right to present local knowledge to other people.A person in the third position alienates him/herself from local knowledge and being a local despite connections to the area.The fourth position is that people who are relatively new to the area consider themselves able to adopt and integrate into at least some aspects of local knowledge.Finally, there is a position in which a person does not want to claim a lot of local knowledge as a result of not feeling deep belonging to the area.
Sweden positioned themselves in relation to local knowledge.A civil servant in Sweden thought the County Board represented local nature-based knowledge to certain degree, although perhaps lacking the cultural and historical aspects, whereas a Finnish correspondent, although expressing a feeling of belonging to the area, clearly differentiated between local authorities and local knowledge, stating 'we authorities cannot think as locals' in terms of environmental issues, implying at the same time that local knowledge and practices were something harmful in principle, and distancing him/herself from them.Another Finnish civil servant stated that 'we don't discuss things based on opinions', emphasising that official expert knowledge and natural values overrode other aspects.This demonstrates a strong tendency to relate to expertise as something possessed by officials, and to see other actors as merely having opinions, rather than being relevant knowledge holders or experts on a place in their own right.In these views, 'being a local' and deep connections with the place are portrayed rather as a hindrance to the credibility of knowledge claims.
Local knowledge was found to represent various and varying dimensions of cultural, historical nature-bases and social aspects for the actors concerned.The scarce literature including the views of multiple actors on local knowledge (see Taylor & de Loë, 2012) has shown that spatiality, relationship with the area, ecological conditions and land management practices feature in the definitions of local knowledge by actors outside academia.Our findings follow a similar pattern to some degree, although cultural and historical knowledge was emphasised by many actors in our case study in discussing local knowledge in general terms.This study shows that cultural diversity is reflected in local knowledge and what is being deemed local knowledge.This finding calls for more heed to local seems that an ideal of local knowledge as something traditional and created within nature-based livelihoods over generations, following definitions of indigenous and local knowledge and traditional ecological knowledge in academia (e.g.Berkes, 2008), is also entertained by people outside academia in the study context.In addition to possible TEK, it is important to consider people's knowledge related to new drivers that are changing the local environment such as tourism in the study context, to guide the management of the SES.Exploring local knowledge in a particular place and from the perspective of local inhabitants brings a wide range of perceptions and the role of place into the discussion more profoundly and without staying at the level of abstraction of academic discussion.Pre-determined ideas of local knowledge can emphasise the urge to maintain specific units of knowledge, which, according to Gómez-Baggethun and Reyes-García (2013), is less important than the ability of a society to generate, transform, convey and apply knowledge.Accordingly, the resilience of an SES depends more on these knowledge processes, and not the knowledge itself(Gómez-Baggethun & Reyes- García, 2013; Guerrero Lara et al., 2019).
5.2.1 | Interactions and expectations of expertise through place-belonging and local knowledgeTensions in perceptions of who has relevant expertise and what kind of expertise should be utilised were evident in the knowledge interactions between actors stemming from different knowledge-place connections.These related to such matters as perceived credibility of local knowledge or questioning the legitimacy of knowledge of official actors based on one's own epistemic connections and belonging to the area gained through lived experience.Here, doubting the external expertise or implementation of decisions based on scientific then perhaps were considered to be allowed to present and draw on their local knowledge.This perception of being a local and an epistemic dimension of the place connection was subjectively created by individuals and then reflected and amplified or condensed in the interaction with others.The experiences of local knowledge and place-belonging can shape how and to what extent it becomes included in formal decision-making spheres.Is local knowledge reflected through active, even first hand, experiences?Is it derived from other (perhaps very few) actors who are considered to have relevant local knowledge?Or is it reduced to one aspect of an area-such as history or ecological knowledge-which may possibly ignore current issues and other knowledge contributions?Our findings show that all of these positions on local knowledge are possible in governance structures, which are therefore not homogeneous entities, manifesting just one type of expertise (O'Connor et al., 2021).Rather, they include a plurality of knowledge sources and expertise, and experiences of a place.Formulation of knowledge expertise with and through placebelonging also happens within expert bodies that include multiple attitudes towards local knowledge in interaction with other forms of knowledge.Understanding these differing views stemming from knowledge-place connections can thus increase understanding of why some meanings and knowledge are or are not presented and also emphasises the potential in exploring links between SES and sense of place research(Stedman, 2016).It is likely that similar patterns of knowledge-place connections as mapped in the typology in this case study are repeated in different places and SES, which highlights the need for unpacking often stark divisions of actors and their knowledge into roles such as managers, experts, decision-makers or locals when the dynamics of SES are discussed in academia as well as in real-world collaborative governance processes(O'Connor et al., 2021).Here, the idea of knowledge systems and an expectation of local knowledge can even hinder seeing the multiple ways of knowing and considering the perceptions of various actors.The metaphor of a system implies closure and fixity (as discussed byConnell et al., 2016, p. 25)  and, if treated rigidly,

Edwards, 2011 )
was influenced by place-belonging together with the epistemic interpretation of the requests for knowledge-based collaboration either matching or not matching the experienced realities and knowledge in a place.In this case study, claiming and expecting agency in local questions was channelised through place-belonging together with the epistemic dimension sometimes manifested in, for example, strict views towards external influence and knowledge of the area.An important question remains: 'How does one manage the connections between knowledge and place-belonging and the complex positions they create in environmental governance settings?'We propose the concept of place-embedded agency to highlight the implications of knowledge-place connections for the interactions and capacity of actors to act in a place (Figure1).This offers a way to recognise the overlap between both place-belonging and local knowledge, highlighting the epistemic dimension of sense of place, which has implications for knowledge interactions.Theoretically, local knowledge can be seen to be shaped by contextual and personal factors such as human-environment interactions, cultural norms and an individual's experience(Raymond, Brown, & Weber, 2010;Raymond, Fazey, et al., 2010).Similar and overlapping aspects of social and environmental factors including biophysical features and experience(Raymond et al., 2017), as well as mobility and immobility and different shades thereof (Di Masso et al., 2019), determine place-belonging.This was also present in the empirical data where knowledge was discussed through connections to the environment, F I G U R E 1 Place-embedded agency, situated at the intersections of local knowledge and place-belonging, shapes interactions and actions in a place.place, people, time, and the cultural heritage and norms, and finally reflected through both personal experience of knowledge and the place.Local knowledge and belonging thus shape and re-shape each other.The focus on place-embedded agency can help to identify the disparate views on who can present local knowledge and have a say about a place, and how local knowledge is, if at all, included in the management.This can be particularly relevant in transboundary governance contexts in which knowledge-place connections may vary because of national, political and cultural boundaries (Sternliebe, 2013), and in different ecosystem governance settings in general, in which inclusivity of views is encouraged to achieve socially just decision-making (Berbés-Blázquez et al., 2016).The concept of place-embedded agency can thus serve as a way of incorporating diverse individuals as embedded actors in SES dynamics through acknowledging and recognising the place connections and knowledge that create multiple positions, which are established in interaction with others.These positions may be shaped by but are not dependent on the official roles of actors such as being a manager.In addition, the epistemic dimension actualises the agency in human interaction, of which, for example, unwillingness to participate in collaborative processes because of the perception of lack of suitable knowledge about the place or questioning external knowledge based on one's own experience exemplify.Place itself can be considered as creating agency and shaping people as often discussed within indigenous ontologies(Larsen & Johnson, 2016).As such, exploring place and the epistemic dimensions of a place in particular as a component of agency can contribute to understanding the different and often complex relational positions which are reflected in varying aspirations for an SES(Stedman et al., 2019)  and hold the potential to transform relationships and foster the transformative agency of different actors(Frantzeskaki et al., 2018).Ultimately, place-embedded agency facilitates exploration of the underlying question of whose knowledge counts in the governance of SES.Simply focusing on conflicts and dominant voices narrating a place provides a limited and narrow picture of the multiple positions, knowledge and interests in the World Heritage Site.Using the notion of place-embedded agency to highlight this plurality and the various opportunities for knowledge interactions can help to build constructive discussions that can lead to more sustainable and inclusive development of the area.
edge in the management and governance of an ecosystem is increasingly acknowledged.The sense of place and place-based research have been recognised as a way to understand subjectivity, multiple meanings and agency in SES.In this study, we explore knowledge-place connections through perceptions of local knowledge and place-belonging, and show how the interrelated view can help to unpack agency in SES using the High Coast/ Kvarken Archipelago UNESCO World Heritage site as an empirical case.This study sheds light on the epistemic dimension of a sense of place.We propose a concept of place-embedded agency to highlight the role of place in shaping interactions and actions between different actors together with the epistemic processes.We conclude that exploring place-embedded agency may provide a crucial pathway for managing environmental conflicts in ways that not only deal with different people-place connections but also different epistemic views.Although our study context presents a transboundary governance case, further evidence and focus on how knowledge-place connections manifest themselves within various boundaries and influence governance of such places is needed.The increasing focus on movement, or fixities and flows, in the sense of place literature(Di Masso et al., 2019) also creates an interesting way to study knowledge-place connections and the epistemic dimension of sense of place.In future research, it is thus also necessary to pay attention to how mobility-or immobility-shapes the epistemic dimension of sense of place, and what it means to people's connections to place in today's increasingly connected societies.As shown in this study, place-belonging offers an additional component to unpacking agency, which could be a relevant approach to understand participant interactions and the ability to act in many contexts.The notion of place-embedded agency could be applicable, for example in recognising and identifying different actors and their positions in the processes of co-creation and production of knowledge in other places such as cities and non-protected areas and complex sciencesociety-policy interfaces.

Table 2
Typology of knowledge-place connections.Five different ways to relate local knowledge and place-belonging It is clear [that I have local knowledge].I was born here and I have a lot of local knowledge because I have been here a lot since I was small, and my grandparents had a boat… And I have local knowledge about the land rise, I have seen it very well I believe I have good local knowledge.From my mother's side we have lived here for five generations and we have 400-500 years of family history here.I have a good understanding about what has happened in this area, how it has been formed and what has been done here There is, though, considerable knowledge among those who work with the local industries such as the fisheries, forestry and agriculture, I see those people as the experts.I maybe have, so to say, a good overview or insight.But there is this knowledge maybe, among the older generation who have really lived from fishery and agriculture and forestry, who have core knowledge.They know things precisely I think that those who have lived long in the village and those who maybe do not have a normal job, but who have been fishers and hunters [have local knowledge].They move a lot in the wild and in the archipelago.I think I have local knowledge.It relates to the fact that I have always lived in the village and been out in the archipelago since I was a kid.My father was a fisher.My brothers have been fishers.[…]ButIdonot have local knowledge to the same extent as even older people who was not born here, have knowledge when it comes to certain things [bird species for example] about which I know a lot.I can go out and show them to people […] I got a commission from the County because I have this knowledge I do not know if you can count anyone out [of having local knowledge].Of course those people who live here have it, but tourists also have some knowledge that they use there, they stay with some interface of local knowledge.[…]So,forlocalknowledge is not necessary that you have been living somewhere very long.I have learned a lot about this area even though I have lived here only for 6 years.So, in that way I have got into the local knowledge a civil servants' local knowledge… I did not grow up here.ButI think I know this area.[…]I'dliketohave a pearl that is my favourite place.That is something I feel that the locals have, they feel strongly that this is theirs.It is more difficult for a person who is not from here to claim that this or that is my favourite place.[…]butonecannotsay that people who have recently moved to the area do not have local knowlegde.Local knowledge is something different from 30 to 50 years ago.I am thinking that people move a lot more, in and out, and it is less common that many generations have lived in the same place Maybe I have local knowledge but I feel like I am between these two categories [expert and local knowledge].I have not been here very long so I cannot say I am mastering local knowledge at the level of a local person.I simply just have not been in so many places and could not transfer [knowledge about] how things are in certain places I am still a beginner [in local knowledge] even though I have worked here for seven yearslocal area, geography, inhabitants, the culture of the area, its history and knowing people'(F, municipality, Finland).As this quote illustrates, interviewees with these types of views either did not pinpoint a specific aspect or an activity or did not relate local knowledge to just one phenomenon, such as nature, but presented it more as a feature underpinning everyday life.As also reflected in the previous quote, almost one-third of the interviewees linked their knowledge strongly to nature such as ecological conditions of the area, birds or plants.
as 'kilometres, different levels', 'place-related and specific' and 'visit-ing/knowing places'.An equally prominent theme was relating local knowledge to cultural-historical aspects such as one's past life and historical events in the area.Under this theme, local stories were mentioned a few times, relating them to local knowledge such as: 'It is when folks who live here say what they have experienced and seen in relation to land rise at least.They have noticed changes over time.[…]There is local knowledge around these historical stories.They perhaps have connections' (F, County, Sweden).Some of the interviewees approached local knowledge through nature-based livelihoods such as fishing, forestry and agriculture.This theme was sometimes also strongly linked with knowledge about nature: If you are going to live from fishery, hunting or agriculture, you learn very quickly that you cannot do it if things are not in balance.You cannot fish an empty sea.If so you live in abundance one year but starve in the next.[…]Thethingwithprotection is -yes it is a good idea -but this philosophy behind management, to keep the balance is put aside and you think you do something good but the end result is something totally different, you simply shatter this balance.(M,localorganisation,Finland)nature looks like, how to move in the wild and knowledge of natural processes.Some of the interviewees had a very holistic view of local knowledge that combined environmental, historical, social, societal and cultural aspects.For example, 'I consider many different perspectives.I think it [local knowledge] is partly about one being familiar with the Originally from the area and has spent a lot of time there but does not identify with local knowledge or with 'locals'.Local knowledge is something that 'more locals' somewhere else have (e.g. in the archipelago) It is alive, this local knowledge.Those who live in the archipelago for example, they know the landscape and stony paths and know how to get around there.That is the local knowledge we need.That is one thing and the locals who have been fishers, have a lot knowledge about nature […] I cannot really say [that I have local knowledge] but we try to collaborate to promote this cultural-heritage thing as well.It is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage agreement.[…]Well,Iwasborn here, this is my home and therefore this place is important When actors were asked to describe whether they consider having local knowledge and what they have local knowledge about, almost half mentioned general knowledge about the area (often referred to in Swedish as lokalkännedom, or in Finnish as paikallistuntemus), which was used to describe such matters as knowing where things are located and how different areas look, as well as how to move in the wild: This knowledge about the changing landscape.So there is certain local knowledge about how it looked previously as well.That water was here previously and now it looks like this.How is it going to look in the future?That you know about these successive stages and can describe them.But it is also due to my interest in nature.That is where my knowledge is firmly rooted.(F,Education,Finland)getsthislocal network and that is knowledge itself; to know who to make contact with in which situations'(F, State, Finland).Networks were also considered as a way to gain local knowledge, which then was also utilised in their professional spheres.Only a few interviewees claimed to have local knowledge about historical aspects of the area.For example, a local politician in Finland described her local knowledge as follows: 'I know the geo- are, which are the important things that need to be emphasised and such.If you want to work with such a particular entity as the World Heritage Site, you must have local knowledge.(F, State, Finland).
…] we have the archipelago in general, or archipelago life and the environment and the types of nature [as parts of the World Heritage Site]… there it is very obvious that I need to have local knowledge here.I noticed a big difference with a cross-border project with the High Coast and I have never been there and I already have a hard time understanding on the map how far from each other things and places 25758314, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10365 by Universiteit Gent, Wiley Online Library on [12/12/2022].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 25758314, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10365 by Universiteit Gent, Wiley Online Library on [12/12/2022].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License 25758314, 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10365 by Universiteit Gent, Wiley Online Library on [12/12/2022].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License , 2022, 5, Downloaded from https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pan3.10365 by Universiteit Gent, Wiley Online Library on [12/12/2022].See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions)on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License (Davis & Wagner, 2003) local expertise for SES is a key issue for their management(Davis & Wagner, 2003)and it is certainly noteworthy that not all knowledge claims should and can be counted as knowledge(Rydin, 2007).Epistemic dimensions of a place facilitate discussion of the competing claims relating to the 25758314