The good, the bad and the hands-on: constructs of public participation, anglers and lay management of water environments

We use a qualitative study of recreational anglers in northern England to explore constructions of ‘the public’ in environmental management. We examine good and bad constructs of ‘the public’ and show how they emphasise knowledge over practice. We argue for a more differentiated view of the public through ‘environmental engagement’ which will appreciate more fully ways in which both ‘specialised publics’ and ‘performative publics’ are imagined and enacted. We demonstrate how these constructs play out through attending to the discursive and material ‘hands-on’ practices of anglers in environmental management and show how these link different geographies of public participation through both discursive and material spaces.