1 WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY WORKING PAPERS IN EVOLUTIONARY GOVERNACE THEORY # 2 EGT homepage: governancetheory.wordpress.com This is a revised personal version of the article published in Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning. Please cite as: Delineating Locals: Transformations of Knowledge/Power and the Governance of the Danube Delta. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 13 (1): 1-21.http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1523908X.2011.559087 Delineating Locals: Transformations of Knowledge/Power and the Governance of the Danube Delta Kristof Van Assche, Martijn Duineveld, Raoul Beunen and Petruta Teampau Kristof van Assche is Associate Professor at the Communication & Innovation Studies, Wageningen University, The Netherlands & Associate Professor at the ZEF/Center for Development Research, Bonn University, Germany (Corresponding author) | Martijn Duineveld is Assistant Professor at the Cultural Geography Group at. P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands martijn.duineveld@wur.nl | Raoul Beunen is Assistant Professor at Wageningen University. P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands raoul.beunen@wur.nl | Petruta Teampau is Lecturer Political Sciences at Babes Bolyai University, Romania ABSTRACT In this paper, we adopt a Foucaultian perspective on power/knowledge interactions to investigate the evolution and implementation of policy for the Romanian Danube delta. We argue that a better understanding of the potential for citizen participation in environmental governance can be obtained from a careful analysis of the pathways of emergence, enactment and implementation of policies affecting an area. Policies are seen as temporary conceptual structures coordinating knowledge and power, in constant transmutation because of the confrontation with other power/knowledge configurations. For the Danube Delta, it is argued that policies originating at various levels of government co-create a Ǯlocalǯ that is scrutinized, silenced, exoticized, subjugated and marginalized. Finally, we investigate the implications of this and similar processes of delineation of actors for participatory natural resource governance. Keywords: urban planning, design, governance evolutions, flexibility, adaptation INTRODUCTION There is a large body of literature on participatory spatial planning, and participatory natural resource governance in which participation as such and participatory methods and tools are defended, criticised and deconstructed (Bulkeley and Mol, 2003; Burgess et al., 1998; Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Goodwin, 1998; Hirsch et al., 2010; Kohn, 2000; Mosse, 2001; Pellizzoni, 2001; Stringer et al., 2006; Turnhout et al., 2010; Wells and McShane, 2004) While academic attention first produced rather prescriptive studies in which forms and methods of participation were suggested, more recently participatory governance has attracted more critical scrutiny (Stringer et al, 2006; Mannigel, 2008). According to Turnhout et al ȋʹͲͳͲȌ Ǯ[t]his orientation on practices of participation has provoked a wide array of critical studies that have investigated the intended and unintended consequences of participation, and question whether the various ideals of participation, including consensus, better decisions, legitimacy, and support are actually met.ǯ