Research Updates
Welcome back to my research blog. With the PhD now taking shape and the project moving from early scoping into deeper conceptual and methodological work, it felt like the right moment to share a full update on where the research is heading, what has evolved, and what new questions are coming into focus.
Over the past few months, the project has grown from an initial exploration of sustainable business in the Cornwall National Landscape into a broader investigation of governance, social capital, and cultural identity within protected landscapes. Below is an overview of the direction the research is now taking and the ideas guiding its next steps.
An Evolving Focus: From Sustainable Business to Governance and Social Capital
At the start of the PhD, it was primarily looking at sustainable business development within the Cornwall National Landscape (CNL). After digging deeper into policies, management plans, and community dynamics, a different pattern started to emerge:
Sustainable outcomes in protected landscapes depend just as much on relationships as they do on regulations.
This realisation shifted the emphasis of the research. The central question is now:
How does social capital influence environmental stewardship and sustainable business development in protected landscapes, and in what ways can the Community Capitals Framework (CCF) be applied to assess and enhance governance outcomes in the Cornwall National Landscape (CNL) five-year plan?
Instead of looking only at business opportunities, I’m now analysing the wider governance ecosystem:
how local communities work with institutions
how partnership networks form
how trust, shared identity, and cultural heritage shape action
how policies translate into practice across the CNL’s diverse landscapes
This gives the project a stronger conceptual foundation and connects it to wider debates in environmental governance and rural development.
Building a Theoretical Toolkit
A big part of the recent work has focused on refining the thesis’s conceptual scaffolding. The three key pieces are now:
1. Social Capital
Networks, trust, shared norms, and connections across groups (bonding, bridging, and linking ties). These influence everything from volunteer mobilisation to cross-sector partnerships and compliance with planning decisions.
2. Community Capitals Framework (CCF)
This framework identifies seven capitals (natural, cultural, social, human, political, financial, built) and helps show how community assets interact to support or hinder sustainable outcomes. It’s especially useful for unpacking governance complexity.
3. Landscape Governance
Protected landscapes are no longer just conservation spaces, they are arenas where ecological, social, economic, political, and cultural components meet. Governance is increasingly multi-actor, place-based, and negotiated.
Bringing these three lenses together creates a clearer way to analyse Cornwall’s protected landscape and understand the forces shaping its future.
Why This Research Matters
Protected landscapes are undergoing a major shift, moving from “scenic designations” to active spaces of climate action, nature recovery, and sustainable economic development. The Cornwall National Landscape is at the forefront of this shift.
Yet policies can only do so much. Real progress depends on:
trust between agencies and communities
collaboration across sectors
strong linking ties to decision-makers
By exploring these dynamics, the research hopes to offer:
tools for building effective partnerships
evidence for strengthening governance capacity
insights into connecting policy ambitions to place-based realities
Next Steps
Upcoming work includes:
mapping stakeholder networks
analysing the CNL Plan through the lens of community capitals
beginning interviews with land managers, businesses, community groups, and policymakers
exploring the role of cultural narratives (including poems, songs, and folklore) in shaping perceptions of Cornwall’s landscapes
There’s much still to uncover, and the project will continue to evolve as new connections, tensions, and opportunities come into focus.
Thanks for reading and following along with this research journey. More updates, field notes, and reflections coming soon.
