The Arts of Coexistence: A View From Anthropology

Abstract

In this perspectives essay, I propose some ways in which current thinking in anthropology might inform the emergent cross-disciplinary field of coexistence studies. I do so following recent calls from within the conservation science community (including this special issue), acknowledging that understanding human-wildlife coexistence in the fractured landscapes of the Anthropocene1 requires being open to alternative approaches beyond conventional frameworks of conservation science and management (see for instance; Carter and Linnell, 2016; Pooley, 2016; Chapron and López-Bao, 2019; Pooley et al., 2020). The essay suggests that relational (non-dualist) ways of thinking2 in anthropology, often building on Indigenous philosophy and expertise, may help ground coexistence studies beyond Euro-Western modernist conceptual frameworks—frameworks that perpetuate exploitative and colonial logics that many scholars from across academia view as being at the heart of our current ecological crisis (e.g., Lestel, 2013; van Dooren, 2014; Tsing, 2015; Todd, 2016; Bluwstein et al., 2021; Schroer et al., 2021). By proposing “relations” rather than objectified “Nature” or “wildlife” as the more adequate subject of understanding and facilitating coexistence in shared landscapes, I understand coexistence and its study first and foremost as an ethical and political endeavor. Rather than offering any conclusive ideas, the essay's intention is to contribute some questions and thoughts to the developing conversations of coexistence studies scholars and practitioners. It does so by inviting conservation scientists to collaborate with anthropologists and take on board some of the current thinking in the discipline. Amongst other things, I suggest that this will help overcome a somewhat dated notion of cultural relativism—understood as many particular, cultural views on one true objective Nature (only known by Science), a perspective that explicitly and implicitly seems to inform some conservation science approaches to issues of culture or the “human dimensions” of conservation issues. Ultimately, the paper seeks to make a conceptual contribution by imagining coexistence as a dynamic bundle of relations in which the biological, ecological, historical, cultural, and social dimensions cannot be thought apart and have to be studied together.

Complexities of multispecies coexistence: Animal diseases and diverging modes of ordering at the wildlife–livestock interface in Southern Africa

“…In this article, we explore the complexity of living with diseases through the different sets of knowledge, values and meanings associated with the coexistence of humans, livestock, wildlife and pathogens. Particularly in this context, we agree with anthropologist Schroer that the study of coexistence needs to focus on ‘relations and the practices that sustain them’ (2021: 3, emphasis in original). Working in this vein, Porter (2013), in her study of bird flu management in Vietnam, shows how humans-with-animals are the subject of forms of government that aim to optimize coexistence.…”

Indigenous insights on human–wildlife coexistence in southern India

“…Although the sheer act of factoring in animal judgments in human-wildlife encounters is likely considered too radical by most, it is essential to challenge the notion that cash incentives alone will encourage coexistence, as opposed to possibilities for living close to wildlife. As observed by Pooley (2022) and Schroer (2021), what might conservation come to look like should animals be seen as having knowledge about landscapes, being members of coconstitutive communities, and being individuals with distinct personalities and life experiences. This also implies that how humans experience, engage, and relate to wild animals is determined by the distinct ways in which humans and animals mutually conceive each other.…”

“…Thus, several of ongoing discourses on human–wildlife coexistence continue to focus on known examples of conflict, including studies of human interaction with elephants (Thekaekara et al., 2022), tigers (Inskip et al., 2016), and bears (Bhattacharyya & Slocombe, 2017). Also, much‐existing work positions human–wildlife coexistence as a problem in need of intervention, based on incomplete definitions and generic interpretations of tolerance as the primary focus (Pooley, 2022; Schroer, 2021). Thus, deeper meanings and expressions of coexistence and its extension into an understanding of anthropogenic wilderness remain broadly unrecognized.…”