(De)legitimising hunting – Discourses over the morality of hunting in Europe and eastern Africa

Abstract

Hunting is an activity that appears to provoke -often immediate and strongly pronouncedmoral assessments, i.e., judgments of what is 'right' or 'wrong'. A large body of literature explores these moral arguments, often from a philosophical or normative perspective, focusing on specific types of hunting. However, studies that ground such explorations in empirical, systematically analysed, yet contextualised data seem to be missing. We argue that 2 such an approach is essential to understand conflicts over hunting and wildlife management, and present data from focus group discussions and interviews with hunters, non-hunters and hunting critics across six countries in Europe and eastern Africa.Our findings suggest that moral arguments play an extremely important role in the legitimation and delegitimation of hunting practices through discourse. In particular, study participants referred to the motives of hunters as a factor that, in their eyes, determined the acceptability of hunting practices. Moral argumentations exhibited patterns that were common across study sites, such as a perceived moral superiority of the 'moderate' and 'measured', and a lack of legitimacy of the 'excessive'. Implicit orders of hunting motives were used to legitimise types of hunting that were suspected to be contested.On the basis of these findings, we discuss how the moral elements of hunting discourses relate to broader discourses on environmental management, and how these are used to establish (or dispute) the legitimacy of hunting . Our analysis also suggests that there might be more overlap between moral arguments of hunters, non-hunters and hunting critics than popularly assumed, which, where required, could be used as a starting point for conflict management.

Institutional Arrangements for Conservation, Development and Tourism in Eastern and Southern Africa

“…The income could then provide incentives for conservation and development, potentially empowering formerly excluded residents. This would require that individuals invest in sport hunting and selling game products (Fischer et al 2013 ), and that hunting would be controlled, e.g. through a limited number of off-take per year (Baker 1997 ;Hurt and Ravn 2000 ).…”

“…Loveridge et al ( 2006 ), for example, are critical of killing wild animals just for hunters' entertainment. It is argued that the form of stress, distress and death caused by hunting, can cause damage to and extinction of wildlife (Gamborg et al 2012 ;Fischer et al 2013 ), and violates the moral principle of the sanctity of life. In their study on the morality of hunting in Europe and eastern Africa, Fischer et al ( 2013 ) reveal that hunting is only generally accepted if it is done for subsistence.…”

Taking Prejudice Seriously: Burkean Reflections on the Rural Past and Present

“…Indeed, this is a recurring argument from self‐described genuine hunters: that their particular hunting style promotes more desirable and less harmful activities and land use (Fischer et al . ). Moreover, the last theme in our study shows the hunters as willing to pragmatically embrace many aspects of modernity, conceding the processes of economic modernisation and cultural diversification (Skogen and Krange ; Hansen et al .…”

Rumours about wildlife pest introductions: European rabbits in Spain

“…This thematic approach is very effective when it comes to describing datasets in great detail (Braun and Clarke 2006), and is increasingly used in environmental studies (e.g. Fischer et al 2013;Cong et al 2014). The analysis involved three procedures.…”