Apologies for X-posting.
*Call for Papers for the POLLEN 2020 conference Contested Natures: Power,
Possibility, Prefiguration*
24-26 June, 2020, Brighton, UK
*Fallen from Grace? Debating the legacy and state of Southern African
conservation*
Convenors: Stasja Koot and Bram Büscher
Southern Africa has long been at the forefront of nature conservation
globally. Under colonialism, the region played an important part in the
expansion of national parks (Ramutsindela 2004, Cock and Fig 2000), while
independence and post-apartheid led to globally recognized forms of
community-based conservation. The latter combined the conservation of
biodiversity with development through CBNRM (Community-based Natural
Resource Management) and other programs (most famously, through the
CAMPFIRE project in Zimbabwe or the conservancies in Namibia). CBNRM was
predominantly based on the creation of economic benefits through tourism,
trophy hunting and other market-based forms of development, which were soon
criticized for not achieving high expectations around development and
conservation (Sullivan 2002, Blaikie, 2006; Dressler et al. 2010, Koot
2019).
The waning of CBNRM around the early 2000s saw the simultaneous rise
of Transfrontier
Conservation (or ‘Peace parks’) as a new, globally popular conservation
paradigm. Again, this created high expectations about local development and
inclusion, but again with often disappointing results (Duffy 2001, Büscher
2013). As a result, some scholars urged for a more hardline approach to
protecting biodiversity, especially in response to the escalating rhino
poaching crisis that started in 2008. On the ground, this approach has
translated into a militarization of conservation, and different forms of
‘green violence’ (Lunstrum 2014, Büscher and Ramutsindela 2016, Duffy et
al. 2019). At the same time and especially since the early 2010’s, we see a
renewed push for the full-scale commodification of conservation as part of
a broader strategy to build a regional ‘wildlife economy’. Building on the
intensification of the privatization of conservation in relation to (high
end) tourism, a rapidly growing trade in game species and the creation of
so-called ‘wildlife estates’, amongst others, it seems that conservation in
Southern Africa is currently less concerned with building inspiring and
(seemingly) inclusive conservation narratives than to rather find more
‘pragmatic’ ways to merge protection and profit in a neoliberal
conservation context (Silva and Motzer 2015, Massé and Lunstrum 2016, Duffy
et al. 2019, Koot, Hitchcock and Gressier 2019).
For this session we invite papers that aim to understand the legacy and
current state of conservation in Southern Africa and how it might or should
develop in the near future. Does Southern Africa still play the role of
shining conservation example for the world it once was? Or is the region
currently in ‘crisis’, resulting in a more inward-looking conservation
gaze? After so many innovations, what are its current possibilities? How do
contemporary nature conservation initiatives relate to broader political,
social and economic trends and dynamics, including continued inequality,
violence, resource extraction and other pressing environmental issues (e.g.
climate change)? And what does all this mean for local people living
adjacent to (and sometimes working in) conservation areas? Or, more
broadly, how does all this relate to and affect issues of race, gender,
inequality and power in the region? These are concerns and questions which
we would like to discuss in this session for the POLLEN2020 conference, and
we invite papers that address and connect several of these.
If you want to join, please send your abstract (max. 250 words) to Stasja
Koot and Bram Büscher before 15 October, through [log in to unmask] and
[log in to unmask]
*References*
Blaikie, P. (2006) Is Small Really Beautiful? Community-based Natural
Resource Management in Malawi and Botswana. *World Development,* 34*,*
1942-1957.
Büscher, B. 2013. *Transforming the frontier: peace parks and the politics
of neoliberal conservation in southern Africa*. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press.
Büscher, B. & M. Ramutsindela (2016) Green violence: Rhino poaching and the
war to save Southern Africa's peace parks. *African Affairs,* 115*,* 1-22.
Cock, J. & D. Fig (2000) From colonial to community based conservation:
environmental justice and the national parks of South Africa. *Society in
Transition,* 31*,* 22-35.
Dressler, W., B. BüScher, M. Schoon, D. A. N. Brockington, T. Hayes, C. A.
Kull, J. McCarthy & K. Shrestha (2010) From hope to crisis and back again?
A critical history of the global CBNRM narrative. *Environmental
Conservation,* 37*,* 5-15.
Duffy, R. (2001) Peace parks: The paradox of globalisation. *Geopolitics,* 6
*,* 1-26.
Duffy, R., F. Massé, E. Smidt, E. Marijnen, B. Büscher, J. Verweijen, M.
Ramutsindela, T. Simlai, L. Joanny & E. Lunstrum (2019) Why we must
question the militarisation of conservation. *Biological Conservation,* 232
*,* 66-73.
Koot, S. (2019) The Limits of Economic Benefits: Adding Social Affordances
to the Analysis of Trophy Hunting of the Khwe and Ju/’hoansi in Namibian
Community-Based Natural Resource Management. *Society & Natural Resources,*
32*,* 417-433.
Koot, S., R. Hitchcock & C. Gressier (2019) Belonging, Indigeneity, Land
and Nature in Southern Africa under Neoliberal Capitalism: An
Overview. *Journal
of Southern African Studies,* 45*,* 341-355.
Lunstrum, E. (2014) Green Militarization: Anti-Poaching Efforts and the
Spatial Contours of Kruger National Park. *Annals of the Association of
American Geographers,* 104*,* 816-832.
Massé, F. & Lunstrum, E. (2016) Accumulation by securitization: Commercial
poaching, neoliberal conservation, and the creation of new wildlife
frontiers. *Geoforum*, 69, 227-237.
Ramutsindela, M. 2004. *Parks and people in postcolonial societies:
experiences in southern Africa*. New York: Kluwer Academic Publisher.
Silva, J. A. & N. Motzer (2015) Hybrid Uptakes of Neoliberal Conservation
in Namibian Tourism-based Development. *Development and Change,* 46*,*
48-71.
Sullivan, S. 2002. How sustainable is the communalizing discourse of ‘new’
conservation? The masking of difference, inequality and aspiration in the
fledgling 'conservancies' of Namibia. In *Conservation and mobile
indigenous peoples: Displacement, forced settlement, and sustainable
development, *eds. D. Chatty & M. Colchester, 158-187. Oxford: Berghahn
Press.
--
*Website:* stasjakoot.com
*Publications:* https://stasjakoot.com/publications/
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