Skip to main content
Have a personal or library account? Click to login
Power and Sensemaking in Radical Policy Implementation: A Case Study from Nagarhole National Park Cover

Power and Sensemaking in Radical Policy Implementation: A Case Study from Nagarhole National Park

Open Access
|Dec 2025

References

  1. Agrawal, A., Chhatre, A., & Hardin, R. (2008). Changing governance of the world’s forests. Science, 320(5882), 14601462. 10.1126/science.1155369
  2. Art, B., & Visseren-Hamdkers, I. (2012). Forest governance: A state of the art review. In B. Arts, S. Van Bommel, M. Ros-Tonen, & G. Verschoor (Eds.), Forest-people interfaces (pp. 241257). Wageningen Academic Publishers. 10.3920/978-90-8686-749-3_15
  3. Assadi, M. (2006). Interim report on the tribal issues of Rajiv Gandhi (Nagarhole) National Park [Interim]. Karnataka High Court Committee on tribal issues of Rajiv Gandhi National Park.
  4. Assadi, M. (2014). Supplementary and final report on the tribal issues of Rajiv Gandhi (Nagarhole) National Park (Nagarhole Tiger Reserve) [Final]. Karnataka High Court Committee on tribal issues of Rajiv Gandhi National Park.
  5. Atanasiu, R., Wickert, C., & Khapova, S. N. (2023). Turning intuition into managerial simple rules. In Developing the Intuitive Executive (pp. 95114). Auerbach Publications. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/9781032617183-6/turning-intuition-managerial-simple-rules-radu-atanasiu-christopher-wickert-svetlana-khapova
  6. Basha, P. C. (2017). Tribal land alienation: A sociological analysis. International Journal of Advanced Educational Research, 2(3), 7881.
  7. Bhasker, H. (n.d.). Divisional Commissioner, A Report on the Development of Tribals Living in the Hilly and Forest Areas of Mysore district, pp. 143
  8. Bijoy, C. R. (2022). Chronicling India’s environment ministry’s resistance to democracy in the forest. Law Env’t & Dev. J., 18, 18.
  9. Bingham, C. B., & Eisenhardt, K. M. (2011). Rational heuristics: The ‘simple rules’ that strategists learn from process experience. Strategic Management Journal, 32(13), 14371464. 10.1002/smj.965
  10. Brown, A. D., Colville, I., & Pye, A. (2015). Making sense of sensemaking in organization studies. Organization Studies, 36(2), 265277. 10.1177/0170840614559259
  11. Carmel, E. (2019). Regimes of governing practices, socio-political order and contestation. In Governance analysis (pp. 2446). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/edcoll/9781788111744/9781788111744.00009.xml
  12. CFR-LA. (2016). Promise and Performance: Ten Years of the Forest Rights Act in India. Citizens’ Report on Promise and Performance of The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, after 10 years of its Enactment. Produced as part of Community Forest Rights-Learning and Advocacy Process.
  13. Cheria, A., Narayan, K., Bijoy, C., & Edwin. (1997). A search for justice: A citizen’s report on the Adivasi experience in South India. St Paul’s Publications, Bangalore.
  14. Choo, C. W. (2002). Sensemaking, knowledge creation, and decision making: Organizational Knowing as Emergent Strategy. In C.W. Choo & N. Bontis (Eds.), The strategic management of intellectual capital and organizational knowledge (pp. 7988). Oxford University Press, USA. https://www.academia.edu/download/48493999/SMICOKchap5b.pdf
  15. Clegg, S. (2006). The bounds of rationality: Power/history/imagination. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 17(7), 847863. 10.1016/j.cpa.2005.08.005
  16. Clegg, S. (2012). Foundations of organization power. In Political power: the development of the field (Vol. 2, pp. 89127). Barbara Budrich. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17540290902760873
  17. Coleman, A., Billings, J., Allen, P., Mikelyte, R., Croke, S., MacInnes, J., & Checkland, K. (2021). Ambiguity and conflict in policy implementation: The case of the new care models (vanguard) programme in England. Journal of Social Policy, 50(2), 285304. 10.1017/S0047279420000082
  18. Das, B. K. (2019). Denial of rights continues: How legislation for ‘democratic decentralisation’ of forest governance was subverted in the implementation process of the forest rights act in india. The European Journal of Development Research, 31(4), 957983. 10.1057/s41287-019-0195-2
  19. Dash, S. K. (2011). PESA–conformity and operational issues: A case study of Orissa. Orissa Review, 47(7–8), 4145.
  20. Demps, K., Zorondo-Rodríguez, F., García, C., & Reyes-García, V. (2012). Social learning across the life cycle: Cultural knowledge acquisition for honey collection among the Jenu Kuruba, India. Evolution and Human Behavior, 33(5), 460470. 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2011.12.008
  21. Desor, S. (2013). Citizens’ report 2013 on community forest rights under Forest Rights Act. Kalpavriksh, Vasundhara.
  22. Edelman, L. B. (2020). Working law: Courts, corporations, and symbolic civil rights. University of Chicago Press. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.7208/9780226400938/html
  23. Fanari, E. (2019). Relocation from protected areas as a violent process in the recent history of biodiversity conservation in India. INSEE Journal, 2(1), 4376. 10.37773/ees.v2i1.55
  24. FAO. (2010). Global forest resources assessment 2010. [Main]. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO). https://www.fao.org/3/i1757e/i1757e.pdf
  25. Fleischman, F. D. (2012). Public servant behavior and forest policy implementation in Central India. Indiana University.
  26. Fleischman, F. D. (2014). Why do foresters plant trees? Testing theories of bureaucratic decision-making in Central India. World Development, 62, 6274. 10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.05.008
  27. Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2014). Power in management and organization science. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 237298. 10.5465/19416520.2014.875671
  28. Furumo, P. R., Yu, J., Hogan, J. A., Tavares De Carvalho, L. M., Brito, B., & Lambin, E. F. (2024). Land conflicts from overlapping claims in Brazil’s rural environmental registry. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(33), e2407357121. 10.1073/pnas.2407357121
  29. Gioia, D. A., & Chittipeddi, K. (1991). Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal, 12(6), 433448. 10.1002/smj.4250120604
  30. Government of Karnataka. (2019). Karnataka Forest Department Annual Report 201819. Karnataka Forest Department.
  31. Griffiths, T., & Colchester, M. (2000). Indigenous peoples, forests and the World Bank: Policies and practice. Forest Peoples Program. http://www.forestpeoples.org/sites/default/files/publication/2010/09/wbipswshoprepaug00eng.pdf
  32. Guha, R. (1983). Forestry in British and post-British India: A historical analysis. Economic and Political Weekly, 18821896.
  33. Gupta, D., Lele, S., & Sahu, G. (2020). Promoting a responsive state: The role of NGOs in decentralized forest governance in India. Forest Policy and Economics, 111. 10.1016/j.forpol.2019.102066
  34. Gupta, P. (2021). Conservation is development in the forests of Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, India. Journal of South Asian Development, 16(1), 5474. 10.1177/09731741211005630
  35. Hannam, K. (2000). Educating an environmental elite: The training of the Indian Forest Service. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 9(4), 285295. 10.1080/10382040008667661
  36. Hebbar, R. (2022). Undoing historical injustice? Critical reflections on India’s Forest Rights Act, 2006. Social Change, 52(4), 491504. 10.1177/00490857221125562
  37. Hebinck, P. G. M., & Bourdillon, M. F. C. (2001). Women, men, and work: Rural livelihoods in south-eastern Zimbabwe. Weaver Press. https://www.academia.edu/download/80815188/Bourdillon_and_Hebinck_2001.pdf
  38. Hordern, J. (2015). An unfinished experiment: Ambiguity and conflict in the implementation of higher skills policy. Research Papers in Education, 30(2), 248265. 10.1080/02671522.2013.879335
  39. Humphreys, M., Ucbasaran, D., & Lockett, A. (2012). Sensemaking and sensegiving stories of jazz leadership. Human Relations, 65(1), 4162. 10.1177/0018726711424320
  40. Kashwan, P. (2013). The politics of rights-based approaches in conservation. Land Use Policy, 31, 613626. 10.1016/j.landusepol.2012.09.009
  41. Kashwan, P. (2017). Democracy in the woods: Environmental conservation and social justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190637385.001.0001
  42. Kemppainen, T., & Uusitalo, O. (2022). Introducing a sensemaking perspective to the service experience. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 32(2), 283301. 10.1108/JSTP-02-2021-0030
  43. Kgwete, M. T. (2021). Sensemaking dimensions of policy implementation: Issues, concepts, and perspectives [PhD Thesis, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University]. https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/109904
  44. Kodiveri, A. (2018). Wildlife first, people later? Forest rights and conservation-towards an experimentalist governance approach. J. Indian L. & Soc, 9, 39.
  45. Kohli, K., & Kuriakose, S. (2025). Securing rights enabling futures: Policy lessons from forest rights act and future pathways. United Nations Development Program.
  46. Kudva, N. (2001). Development and democratization: A contextual critique of NGO behavior and practice through the case of the Tribal Joint Action Committee in Karnataka, India. [PhD Thesis, University of California, Berkeley].
  47. Kujur, P., Sahu, S., Nayak, S., & Fridays for Future (2022). Joint fact-finding report on forced evictions, rehabilitation betrayals and fortress conservation in Nagarhole. Survival International. https://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/2151/Joint_Fact_Finding_Report-_Nagarhole_pdf_report.pdf
  48. Kutty, R. (Forthcoming). Claiming the forest commons: The challenge of pre-existing tenure regimes and underlying power inequities. International Journal of Commons.
  49. Kutty, R., Kodiveri, A., Lele, S., & Setty, S. (2019). India’s Forest Rights Act, 2006 stuck in a maze of bureaucratic interpretations? The Indian Journal of Social Work, 80(4). 10.32444/IJSW.2019.80.4.439-460
  50. Kutty, R., & Menon, A. (2025). Brokering power: Bureaucratic contestations in participatory forest governance. Conservation and Society, 23(2), 4151. 10.4103/cs.cs_6_24
  51. Lal, R., Kothari, A., Pande, P., & Singh, S. (Eds.) (1994). Directory of national parks and sanctuaries in Karnataka: Management status and profiles. Indian Institute of Public Administration.
  52. Lele, S. (1998, February). Why, who, and how of jointness in Joint Forest Management: Theoretical considerations and empirical insights from the Western Ghats of Karnataka. Paper Presented at the International Workshop on Shared Resource Management in South Asia, Anand, Gujarat, India.
  53. Lele, S., Broome, N. P., Joshi, A., Chettri, A., Tatpati, M., & Mokashi, S. (2020). Critical Wildlife Habitat: What is it, how should it be implemented, and how is it being pushed through? ATREE and Kalpavriksh. http://archives.atree.org/id/eprint/211/
  54. Lélé, S., & Rao, R. J. (1996). Whose cooperatives and whose produce? The case of LAMPS in Karnataka. Rediscovering Cooperation, Institute of Rural Management Anand, Anand, Gujarat (pp. 5391).
  55. Lewis, B. R. (1897). Mysore. Gazetteer compoled for Govt. Vol. 1. Mysore in general Rev. Archibold Constable and Company, Westminster.
  56. Liu, P., & Ravenscroft, N. (2021). Collective forests and the community at the legal frontier of property rights reforms in China. The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 53(1), 4259. 10.1080/07329113.2021.1872007
  57. Lukes, S. (2021). Power: A radical view. Bloomsbury Publishing.
  58. Mahanty, S. (2003). Insights from a cultural landscape: Lessons from landscape history for the management of Rajiv Gandhi (Nagarahole) National Park. Conservation & Society, 1(1), 2347.
  59. Maitlis, S., & Lawrence, T. B. (2007). Triggers and enablers of sensegiving in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 50(1), 5784. 10.5465/amj.2007.24160971
  60. Mathews, S. (2005). Imperial imperatives and the global financing of protected areas ecodevelopment and the resistance of Adivasis of Nagarhole National Park, India. Law, Social Justice & Global Development Journal, 1.
  61. Matland, R. E. (1995). Synthesizing the implementation literature: The ambiguity-conflict model of policy implementation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 5(2), 145174.
  62. MoTA. (2015). Frequently Asked Questions on the Forest Rights Act. Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA). Government of India. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://tribal.nic.in/downloads/FRA/FAQ/FAQ%20ENGLISH_Approved_compressed.pdf
  63. Mukherjee, A. (2009). Conflict and coexistence in a national park. Economic and Political Weekly, 5259.
  64. Nayaka, H. (2010). Situating tribals in the early history of Karnataka. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 71, 97109.
  65. Pouchepadass, J. (1990). The ecological history of the central Western Ghats in the modern period: A preliminary survey. Department of Social Sciences, French Institute.
  66. Prasher, G. (2024, September 30). Tiger Foundations flourishing in Karnataka. Bangalore Mirror. https://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/others/tiger-foundations-flourishing-in-karnataka/articleshow/113792439.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
  67. Rao, K. P. (1963). Report of the State Seminar on Tribal Welfare. Tribal Cultural Research & Training Institute, Government of Andhra Pradesh. http://repository.tribal.gov.in/handle/123456789/74012
  68. Reddy, M. G., Kumar, K. A., Rao, P. T., & Springate-Baginski, O. (2011). Issues related to implementation of the Forest Rights Act in Andhra Pradesh. Economic and Political Weekly, 7381.
  69. Regan, P. M. (1984). Personal information policies in the United States and Britain: The dilemma of implementation considerations. Journal of Public Policy, 4(1), 1938. 10.1017/S0143814X00002506
  70. Rupavath, R. (2009). Tribal land alienation and political movements: Socio-economic patterns from South India. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-V9JDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=alienation+from+forests+and+tribals+in+india&ots=0-BMI78Qfb&sig=aMJKYBYvXxNSaavuYgTC2i-Cj9M
  71. Rupavath, R. (2019). Tribal Alienation and Conflict in India: A Perspective from Below. Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 11(2), 194209. 10.1177/2455328X18822907
  72. Sahu, G. (2020). Implementation of community forest rights: Experiences in the Vidarbha Region of Maharashtra. Environmental Responsibility, 55(18), 46.
  73. Sahu, G., Dash, T., & Dubey, S. (2017). Political economy of community forest rights. Economic and Political Weekly, 52(25–26), 4447.
  74. Sandberg, J., & Tsoukas, H. (2020). Sensemaking reconsidered: Towards a broader understanding through phenomenology. Organization Theory, 1(1), 263178771987993. 10.1177/2631787719879937
  75. Sarin, M. (2010, June). Democratizing India’s forests through tenure and governance reforms. Social Action, 60, 104120.
  76. Sarin, M. (2014). Undoing historical injustice: Reclaiming citizenship rights and democratic Forest governance through the Forest rights act. Democratizing Forest Governance in India, 100146. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198099123.003.0004
  77. Sarin, M., Singh, N., Sundar, N., & Bhogal, R. (2003). Devolution as a threat to democratic decision-making in forestry?: Findings from three states in India [Working Paper]. http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/working_papers/wp197.pdf
  78. Sarin, M., & Springate-Baginski, O. (2010). India’s Forest Rights Act: The anatomy of a necessary but not sufficient institutional reform. Research Programme Consortium for Improving Institutions for Pro-Poor Growth, Manchester.
  79. Schildt, H., Mantere, S., & Cornelissen, J. (2020). Power in sensemaking processes. Organization Studies, 41(2), 241265. 10.1177/0170840619847718
  80. Scott, J. C. (1989). Everyday forms of resistance. The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, 4(89), 3362. 10.22439/cjas.v4i1.1765
  81. Sen, A. (2021). A political ecology of forest conservation in India: Communities, wildlife and the state. Routledge. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003007852/political-ecology-forest-conservation-india-amrita-sen
  82. Sen, A., & Pattanaik, S. (2019). The political agenda of implementing Forest Rights Act 2006: Evidences from Indian Sundarban. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 21(5), 23552376. 10.1007/s10668-018-0138-7
  83. Spillane, J. P., Reiser, B. J., & Reimer, T. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, 72(3), 387431. 10.3102/00346543072003387
  84. Springate-Baginski, O., Sarin, M., Ghosh, S., Dasgupta, P., Bose, I., Banerjee, A., Sarap, K., Misra, P., Behera, S., & Reddy, M. G. (2008, July 14–18). The Indian Forest Rights Act 2006: Commoning enclosures, 12th Biennial Global Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), Cheltenham, England. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Oliver-Springate-Baginski/publication/42762034_The_Indian_Forest_Rights_Act_2006_Commoning_Enclosures/links/0deec518e3cce806fb000000/The-Indian-Forest-Rights-Act-2006-Commoning-Enclosures.pdf
  85. Springate-Baginski, O., Sarin, M., & Reddy, M. G. (2013). Resisting rights: Forest bureaucracy and the tenure transition in India. Small-Scale Forestry, 12(1), 107124. 10.1007/s11842-012-9219-x
  86. Tatpati, M., & Ajit, S. (2017). Community forest rights at a glance: Citizens’ report (2015–17) (CFR-LA 2015–17). Kalpavriksh and Vasundhara.
  87. Thomas, J. B., Clark, S. M., & Gioia, D. A. (1993). Strategic sensemaking and organizational performance: Linkages among scanning, interpretation, action and outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 36(2), 239270. 10.2307/256522
  88. Vaara, E., & Whittle, A. (2022). Common sense, new sense or non-sense? A critical discursive perspective on power in collective sensemaking. Journal of Management Studies, 59(3), 755781. 10.1111/joms.12783
  89. Vasudeva, S. P. (2016). Defining forest for conservation and socio-economic development of India. https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.5555/20173278154
  90. Wani, M. (Ed.) (2012, June). Applicability of the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (recognition of forest rights) Act, 2006 (Also called) The Forest Rights Act (FRA) to Protected Areas (PAs). Kalpavriksh. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://kalpavriksh.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Brief_FRAtoPAs-1.pdf
  91. Weick, K. E. (1995a). Sensemaking in organizations (Vol. 3). Sage. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nz1RT-xskeoC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=sensemaking+in+organizations+Weick&ots=zJYtzafoal&sig=McjFsjd2a6K5W3bDhJLSC-2JkqE.
  92. Weick, K. E. (1995b). Sensemaking in organizations (Vol. 3). Sage publications. https://www.torrossa.com/gs/resourceProxy?an=5564159&publisher=FZO137#page=545.
  93. Whittle, A., Vaara, E., & Maitlis, S. (2023). The role of language in organizational sensemaking: An integrative theoretical framework and an agenda for future research. Journal of Management, 49(6), 18071840. 10.1177/01492063221147295
  94. Wibowo, L. R., Murdiati, C. W., Race, D., & Murdiningrum, Y. A. (2012). Forest policy and legal pluralism: A case study in Luwu district, Indonesia. Indon. L. Rev., 2, 1. 10.15742/ilrev.v2n1.9
  95. Young, Z., Makoni, G., & Boehmer-Christiansen, S. (2001). Green aid in India and Zimbabwe–conserving whose community? Geoforum, 32(3), 299318. 10.1016/S0016-7185(01)00005-7
DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/rl.132 | Journal eISSN: 2002-0104
Language: English
Page range: 4 - 4
Submitted on: Apr 15, 2024
Accepted on: Dec 1, 2025
Published on: Dec 15, 2025
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

© 2025 Roshni Kutty, Siddappa R. Setty, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.