Wild-ing the Ethnography of Conservation: Writing Nature’s Value and Agency In

Kiik, Laur

doi:10.1080/00664677.2018.1476222

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(33 reference statements)

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“…This overall focus on understanding life, whether human or non-human, as emerging from an unfolding field of relations, at the same time material and semiotic as well as natural and social, is also beginning to shape and refocus anthropological studies of wildlife conservation and human-wildlife interactions. These are increasingly interested in understanding the agency of otherthan-human beings, including of material processes, in shaping and affecting conservation practice and peoples' relations with wildlife more broadly (e.g., Whitehouse, 2009;Münster, 2014;Kiik, 2018;Gruppuso, 2020;Meulemans, 2020;Chao, 2021).…”

Section: More-than-human Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Arts of Coexistence: A View From Anthropology

Schroer

2021

Front. Conserv. Sci.

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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.

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Section: More-than-human Anthropologymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Arts of Coexistence: A View From Anthropology

Schroer

2021

Front. Conserv. Sci.

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“…Right after the social-entrepreneurship component was added to the workshops, participants were further pushed to feel responsible for protecting the list of species for a financial benefit (Kiik, 2018). For example, participants became carriers of new meanings associated with the Micrurus surinamensis by engaging with tourists so they could support conservation values by buying a knitted animal.…”

Section: Meaningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Knitting for conservation: a social practice perspective on a social and behaviour change communication intervention

Gallegos

Buizer

Hobbis

et al. 2023

Environ Dev Sustain

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We critically reflect on a conservation project in the Ecuadorian Amazon that was designed to promote biodiversity conservation among lowland indigenous communities involved in eco-tourism initiatives by teaching them how to knit a particular set of local animals. We use interpretive qualitative research and draw on social practice theory to examine the ways that participants’ engagement with new knitting in participatory knitting workshops changed the understanding of environmental conservation and social entrepreneurship within an eco-tourism context. Eventually, the intervention pushed participants to adopt new and difficult-to-sustain conservation and entrepreneurial practices. The introduction of these new practices and a focus on a specific list of local species turned animals into commodities and created unsustainable connections with new materials and a disconnect between local and traditional know-how.

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“…Walley (2010: 190) elucidated the inner workings of a National Park as ‘a constellation of social processes organized in and around bureaucracies’ wherein various actors struggled over power, made alliances and sought benefits through patron–client relations. Kockelman (2016) described the office of a local conservation and ecotourism NGO, its busy atmospheres, and employees’ characters. West (2006) discussed details of a transnational NGO project’s funding and donors.…”

Section: Mapping Paths To Conservationlandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservationland: Toward the anthropology of professionals in global nature conservation

Kiik

2018

Critique of Anthropology

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When reading anthropological writings on global nature conservation, one may wonder: Where are the conservationists? Anthropologists have written nuanced ethnographies of how native people encounter and are dispossessed by transnational environmental NGOs and conservation policies. Yet, anthropologists have neglected the other side of those worldwide encounters: the conservation practitioners. Instead, conservationists are sometimes misrepresented as homogenous, impersonal and voiceless. This is surprising, considering anthropologists’ increasing interest in cultures of expertise, including that of professionals in international development. This paper contributes to building the anthropology of professionals in global biodiversity conservation. It locates and reviews disparate material on conservationists from across the ethnographic literature. It argues for attending to the perspectives and diversity of conservation professionals and institutions, their transnational social worlds, naturalist worldviews and emotional lives. A section discusses the key contradictory positionality of the Global South’s local-national professionals. Lastly, the paper reflects on practical challenges to fieldwork in ‘Conservationland’.

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Wild-ing the Ethnography of Conservation: Writing Nature’s Value and Agency In

Cited by 14 publications

References 50 publications

The Arts of Coexistence: A View From Anthropology

The Arts of Coexistence: A View From Anthropology

Knitting for conservation: a social practice perspective on a social and behaviour change communication intervention

Conservationland: Toward the anthropology of professionals in global nature conservation

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