ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the ways in which institutions mediate relationships between people, natural resources and society. It aims to animate theory by showing just how the interaction between social structure and individual agency works through institutions. The primary focus is not on designing institutions for better resource management (already the subject of an impressive literature), but rather on understanding how institutions work in practice and consequently why the outcomes benefit some people and exclude others. The book raises the questions that if institutions tasked with natural resource management are also able to promote equity of access and distribution, to further social justice. One needs to develop richer explanations of how various influences shape human actions and what the effects of socially located institutional processes are for more robust and socially just natural resource management.
