Beyond Loving Nature: Affective Conservation and Human-Pig Violence in the Philippines

Abstract

Contemporary social theory has forcefully argued for a 'loving' postenvironmentalism based on intimate care and making kin with the non-human world. These arguments are a central part of an influential and cross-disciplinary scholarly discourse, increasingly adopted by environmental anthropologists, that envisions a universal moral ecology of 'care, love and kinship' as the solution to the near-apocalyptic social and environmental conditions of the Anthropocene. Drawing on ethnographic work in the Philippines, I explore how this narrowed affective repertoire maps awkwardly onto indigenous Pala'wan explanations of their relationship with the non-human world where reciprocity and respect are held in tension with fear, violence and death. I focus, in particular, on the Palawan bearded pig (Sus ahoenobarbus), an endemic species that has become an emblematic conservation species while also being extensively hunted by indigenous peoples across the Island.

Reversible pigs

“…In a planetary moment when humans interlink with nonhumans on so many scales (Cassidy, 2012), the case indeed resonates with the call to consider the problematic forms of “abundance” that, along with species loss, constitute the Anthropocene and yet that become blurred when scholars rejoice in “multispecies intimacies and entanglements” (Giraud et al., 2019, p. 360). Instead, the responses to the urbanization of wild boars showcase the complex intermingling of violence and compassion in conservation practices (Smith, 2020), and the need to better articulate the diversity of human and wild animals’ lifeworlds in the city (Barua & Sinha, 2019). Far from being a local problem, these tensions attest to the difficult articulation between local knowledge practices, bureaucratic rationales, and science‐based forms of animal governance (Chua et al., 2020; Mathur, 2021).…”

The challenge of compassion in predator conservation

“…However, there remain key challenges to how compassionate conservation works out on the ground, particularly pertinent for those managing potentially dangerous animals like crocodiles. For example, what of the rights of local people living with dangerous wildlife not to like or want that wildlife around, and their right to be angry about depredations on their communities and to dislike individual animals for their actions (Smith, 2020 ). How do we work in landscapes where some locals revere and respect particular species of wildlife, while others see them as a dangerous threat, or where locals identify particular problematic individuals as were-animals, different to “normal” animals (Pooley, 2016 )?…”

Coexistence for Whom?

“…Conservation as a sector has a long history (and continuing legacy) of colonial interference with local livelihoods and relations with wildlife, and displacement of locals in the name of caring for wildlife (Brockington et al, 2008;Dowie, 2009;Domínguez and Luoma, 2020). And while the emerging focus on compassionate conservation (Wallach et al, 2020) has much to recommend it, we should not allow it to foreclose on other kinds of relations and interactions that local peoples have with potentially dangerous and destructive wildlife (Smith, 2020). These may be as legitimate, in context, as the conservationists' desired relations of care and compassion.…”