Knowledge co-production in practice: Enabling environmental management systems for ports through participatory research in the Dutch Wadden Sea

Coastal zone management is inconceivable without the mobilization and integration of different types of knowledge - that is, without knowledge co-production practices. This article applies the concept of knowledge co-production to analyze the process of emergence, standardization, and enculturation of environmental management systems (EMSs) within port communities in the Dutch Wadden Sea. Moreover, it is a report from the field in which we reflect on the participatory practices conducted to facilitate the knowledge arrangements required to develop EMSs for a group of ports. The article concludes that this type of knowledge arrangement and co-production practices (involving different types of actors and knowledge) might become mandatory in the near future to stabilize the EMS phenomenon in the practices of ports. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.