Richardson: The Cows May Safely Graze
In The Cows May Safely Graze; Placing Expert-Lay Relationships at the Center of Overcoming the Expert-Lay Knowledge Divide, author Jill Eileen Richardson (PhD Candidate, Sociology, Wisconsin) examines how a Montana-based non-profit facilitates the exchange of knowledge between experts and laypeople for carnivore management. This study, published in Rural Sociology, aims to (1) underscore the importance of the social constructedness of all forms of knowledge and (2) open up the ways (when, how, under what pressures) lay and expert knowledge are negotiated and settled.
This article looks specifically at one non-profit, Blackfoot Challenge (BC). BC is a grassroots, landowner-based resource management non-profit that manages wolves and grizzly bears in Montana. This article was inspired by the reoccurring disconnect between credentialed experts and laypeople who are often at odds with one another over what constitutes credible knowledge, particularly concerning wolf and grizzly recovery and use of lethal control.
Richardson draws on participant observation and interviews with people who live, work, and recreate in the Blackfoot watershed, works with BC board, staff, and employees of partnering government wildlife agencies, the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This study was conducted through interviews of laypeople, which she defines as “non-professional, not expert” (i.e., the general public) with experts (i.e., people with formal credentials and professional positions). Her interviews focused on the interviewees’ experiences with carnivores and with BC and government over time, both past and present, including what they knew about carnivores, how they knew it, who they learned from, whose knowledge they trusted or distrusted (and why), and how experts and laypeople felt about their relationships with one another.
The results of the study found the relationships between people – expert and lay – were at the core of BC’s ability to bridge the expert-lay knowledge divide. To do so, BC used three strategies to integrate both parties’ knowledge: facilitating learning experiences, forming trusting relationships, and relying on intermediaries. All of these strategies facilitated the exchange of knowledge between experts and laypeople to allow for collaboration. Richardson provides specific examples of collaborative work between the experts and laypeople. For example, she provides the experience of a rancher and government employee who worked together for years and how this translated into collaborative work.
In sum, Richardson argues that BC is successful because their use of the three strategies that communicate knowledge in ways that minimize the amount of trust needed, work to increase the amount of trust between experts and laypeople, and rely on pre-existing trusting relationships among laypeople. She states these strategies are successful because they allow laypeople to adopt knowledge on their own – when, if, and how they see fit – while altering circumstances to increase the likelihood that laypeople do so. Richardson states that future research should explore the transferability of BC’s approach, both throughout the Blackfoot watershed and in other community areas.
