Unmaking the Nature/Culture Divide 115
The approach taken here is ethnographic. I have followed (to the extent
that it has been possible from institutional and practical points of view) and
analyzed the debates that took place in November 2019 during three meetings
in Montreal organized by the CBD: (1) the First Global Thematic Dialogue for
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (18–19 November 2019),
3 (2) the
11th Meeting of the Working Group on Article 8j (20–22 November 2019),
4
and (3) the 23rd Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and
Technological Advice (SBSTTA) (25–29 November 2019).
5 The second of
these meetings was particularly important; it is within the WG8j that IPLCs
are best represented and can best make their opinions known during negotiations with State Parties. Throughout these different meetings, I paid particular
attention to discussions around the “link between nature and culture”: this was
the topic of a specific “item”, a preparatory document had been written on it,
and it had been debated in a plenary session,
6 all in order to help draw up the
Post-2020 Strategic Plan on Biodiversity Conservation. I was attentive to the
various contexts in which participants took a stand on their viewpoints, and
I asked myself the following questions: which nature regimes are put forward
by IPLCs? In what contexts? What are the alliances sought? What strategy, or
strategies, do these positions refer to? The aim was to draw out competing and
recurrent nature regimes that are mobilized by IPLCs at the same meetings – in
the various different spaces where IPLCs express themselves – and sometimes
even in the same documents.
This research situates itself in continuity with work carried out on the CBD
by social science researchers (Aubertin & Filoche, 2011; Boisvert & Caron, 2002;
Campbell et al., 2014; Escobar, 1997; Foyer, 2015; Reimerson, 2013; Suiseeya,
2014), especially the work of Parks (2017; Parks & Schröder, 2018). My approach,
however, is different from previous work in its combination of several choices:
on the one hand, I concentrate on meetings that prepare the COP, where IPLCs
are better represented, and on the other hand I focus on meetings that happened
synchronously, in 2019. In addition, I take an ethnographic approach that combines the analysis of documents, speeches, interviews, and ethnographic observations. Lastly, I concentrate on nature regimes and I adopt a political-ecological
approach. This research, therefore, helps to inform the way that IPLCs negotiate
for the recognition of their rights in international arenas through the exercise of
ontological diplomacy.
The text is organized as follows: after having given an overview of the various
meetings under study and specified how IPLCs take part in them, I present the
various nature regimes put forward by IPLCs according to particular contexts,
focusing on the way that IPLCs present the nature-culture relationship. I begin
with one of the first nature regimes supposed to “integrate” nature and culture, one which calls naturalism into question, then I develop the second nature
regime, which aims to “articulate” nature and culture and which is largely naturalist. At this point, let us note that these terminological choices stem from the
choices of non-indigenous actors, whose usage of terms has crystallized over
The approach taken here is ethnographic. I have followed (to the extent
that it has been possible from institutional and practical points of view) and
analyzed the debates that took place in November 2019 during three meetings
in Montreal organized by the CBD: (1) the First Global Thematic Dialogue for
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (18–19 November 2019),
3 (2) the
11th Meeting of the Working Group on Article 8j (20–22 November 2019),
4
and (3) the 23rd Meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and
Technological Advice (SBSTTA) (25–29 November 2019).
5 The second of
these meetings was particularly important; it is within the WG8j that IPLCs
are best represented and can best make their opinions known during negotiations with State Parties. Throughout these different meetings, I paid particular
attention to discussions around the “link between nature and culture”: this was
the topic of a specific “item”, a preparatory document had been written on it,
and it had been debated in a plenary session,
6 all in order to help draw up the
Post-2020 Strategic Plan on Biodiversity Conservation. I was attentive to the
various contexts in which participants took a stand on their viewpoints, and
I asked myself the following questions: which nature regimes are put forward
by IPLCs? In what contexts? What are the alliances sought? What strategy, or
strategies, do these positions refer to? The aim was to draw out competing and
recurrent nature regimes that are mobilized by IPLCs at the same meetings – in
the various different spaces where IPLCs express themselves – and sometimes
even in the same documents.
This research situates itself in continuity with work carried out on the CBD
by social science researchers (Aubertin & Filoche, 2011; Boisvert & Caron, 2002;
Campbell et al., 2014; Escobar, 1997; Foyer, 2015; Reimerson, 2013; Suiseeya,
2014), especially the work of Parks (2017; Parks & Schröder, 2018). My approach,
however, is different from previous work in its combination of several choices:
on the one hand, I concentrate on meetings that prepare the COP, where IPLCs
are better represented, and on the other hand I focus on meetings that happened
synchronously, in 2019. In addition, I take an ethnographic approach that combines the analysis of documents, speeches, interviews, and ethnographic observations. Lastly, I concentrate on nature regimes and I adopt a political-ecological
approach. This research, therefore, helps to inform the way that IPLCs negotiate
for the recognition of their rights in international arenas through the exercise of
ontological diplomacy.
The text is organized as follows: after having given an overview of the various
meetings under study and specified how IPLCs take part in them, I present the
various nature regimes put forward by IPLCs according to particular contexts,
focusing on the way that IPLCs present the nature-culture relationship. I begin
with one of the first nature regimes supposed to “integrate” nature and culture, one which calls naturalism into question, then I develop the second nature
regime, which aims to “articulate” nature and culture and which is largely naturalist. At this point, let us note that these terminological choices stem from the
choices of non-indigenous actors, whose usage of terms has crystallized over