Relational ontology and more-than-human agency in Indigenous Karen conservation practice

Abstract

Conservation scientists increasingly recognise the value of Indigenous knowledge in conservation practice. However, studies of Indigenous knowledge and resource management systems have often tended to overlook the role and agency of more-than-human beings and ceremonial protocols in mediating human–environment relationships. This paper presents results from community-based research with Karen communities in the Salween Peace Park, an innovative Indigenous-led conservation initiative in the autonomous Karen territory of Kawthoolei, on the border between Thailand and Burma, or Myanmar. Our findings detail ways in which relations with more-than-human beings, including spirits, constitute environmental governance in Karen communities. These findings compel externally situated conservation biologists to take relational ontologies seriously, allowing local interlocutors’ lived experience, knowledge, and theory to challenge culturally bound concepts such as resources, management, and conservation. In order to transform conservation biology through Indigenous perspectives, it is essential to pay attention to the relational world in which many Indigenous Peoples live. Doing so helps support a conservation practice attentive to the interdependence of all life in ways that uphold Indigenous Peoples’ rights of self-determination, cultural identity, and social relations with their ancestral lands. We argue that attending to these relations is essential to building community-based conservation collaborations with Indigenous Peoples that are more effective, sustainable, and just.

Navigating power in conservation

“…“More‐than‐human” or “posthuman” perspectives highlight that species themselves or ecosystems and environmental spaces can hold power and agency (Panelli, 2010; Paul et al, 2021). Such approaches to power aim to highlight the attention to non‐humans and the agency they have, to commit research and practice beyond the focus on humans as the only political subjects and overcome the tendency to see nonhumans as objects.…”

Towards resilience in the Anthropocene: transforming conservation biology through Indigenous perspectives

“…While difficult, these emotions tell us when something has meaning, and help us, together with our cognitive functions, to make sense of our role and relationship with the world around us (Masterson et al 2017;Norgaard and Reed 2017). Under a social-ecological systems approach, we recognise that the well-being of humans, more-than-humans, and nature are intertwined (Gon et al 2021;Paul et al 2021;Sato et al 2021). Humans prioritise the conservation of species to which we feel connected (Echeverri et al 2017), but we often lack an understanding of the complex relationships that result in thriving social-ecological systems (Sato et al 2021).…”

“…Andrew Paul, Robin Roth and Saw Sha Bwe Moo's paper 'Relational ontology and more-than-human agency in Indigenous Karen conservation practice' centred in the, 'Karen territory of Kawthoolei, on the border between Thailand and Burma, or Myanmar', describes the, 'relations with more-than-human beings, including spirits, constitute environmental governance in Karen communities (Paul et al 2021). These findings compel externally situated conservation biologists to take relational ontologies seriously, allowing local interlocutors' lived experience, knowledge, and theory to challenge culturally bound concepts such as resources, management, and conservation'.…”

“…Our description of this Ka ¯naka 'O ¯iwi (Indigenous Hawaiian) oral narrative is framed within an Indigenous worldview that does not perceive dividing lines between humanity and nature (Gon et al 2021). From these oral narratives stem a rich tapestry of Indigenous language and customs including spiritual and material practices, which collectively embody a worldview that shapes the relationships between the unseen and the seen world (Kealiikanakaoleohaililani et al 2021;Paul et al 2021). This underlying and all-encompassing connectivity (Smith 1999) is the vantage point of this Special Issue, 'Transforming Conservation Biology Through Indigenous Perspectives'.…”

Landscape plasticity and its erasure

“…Akha landscapes and livelihoods under the aegis of the ancestors exemplify what Roth (2009) calls “more than abstract space” for Karen in Thailand, or what Cruikshank (2005), in another context, calls a “sentient landscape”. Paul et al (2021: B) describe an “indigenous relational ontology” in which “social personhood and agency extend beyond humans,” as people inhabit a set of ontological practices in which landscapes exert power. For Akha, the legitimacy of the ancestors included moral values of taking care of the landscape, protecting the fertility of the upland rice fields, being wary of wealth (Kammerer, 1996), and honoring hard work.…”