274 Reia Anquet and Fabien Girard
their recognition in domestic legislation where they are still lacking. As many
BCPs included in our case study illustrate, BCPs may also be used as tools for
the vindication of rights on land, territories, and resources. Finally, some believe
that BCPs, insofar as they are undergirded by a new ethic of stewardship, can
be used as “space opening” tools (Mulrennan & Bussières, 2020) to alternative,
non-naturalistic ontologies. In this, BCPs would stand as standard-bearers in the
struggle for making room for IPLCs’ identities.
BCPs and Ecological Scripts: Eco-Governmentality, Counter-Narratives,
and New Subjectivity
Is not such a reading excessively naïve? For such fundamental changes to take
place, there would first have to be profound transformations in Western/
European legal constructs and in their naturalistic underpinnings. The seven
BCPs that this chapter analyses show that, even where a domestic legislation
enshrines a local PIC procedure and further strengthens its application through
the express recognition of BCPs (see Table 11.1, Annex), there is no apparent
shift away from what Mario Blaser calls the Western or European “ontological
matrix” (Blaser, 2009). The way this naturalistic “ontological matrix” unfolds
in several of the BCPs under consideration, the interlacing of narratives and representations around biodiversity conservation, their apparent strategic reversals,
together with references to the ethic of stewardship, are invitations to consider
further what BCPs offer in terms of strategic use of hegemonic categories.
For this purpose, two central concepts will be used: scripts and
eco-governmentality. The seven BCPs included in our case study were examined together with background documentation, and our analysis is informed
by the extensive statutory and regulatory framework in which each was developed. These protocols were analysed as incorporating “scripts”. Scripts partake
in the “institutional and regulatory spaces in which the knowledges and practices are encoded, negotiated, and contested” (Peet & Watts, 1996, p. 11). They
are involved in the construction of social practices and identities. We posit that
scripts need to be grasped at the ontological level, which means that they reach
into radical assumptions about what kinds of things do or exist, their conditions of existence, relationships, attachments, and connectivity (Blaser, 2009). To
understand precisely what is at stake, let us follow the path of a script. Ontologies
express something about the real, the “conditions of possibility we live with”
(Mol, 1999); and for this reason, they are never given, “out there”, ready to be
picked up, but are the result of practices and “dynamic relations of hybrid assemblages” (Blaser, 2013, p. 552). They are always “in the making” (ibid.), “open
and contested” (Mol, 1999, p. 75). They “manifest as ‘stories’” or narratives and
through non-discursive aspects (Blaser, 2009, p. 877). Discursive (e.g. texts and
policies) and non-discursive elements (e.g. objects, conducts, and institutions) rest
upon theoretical knowledge, a “body of doctrine” made of concepts, ideologies,
and axioms. In European/Western ontologies, there is an ontological matrix
their recognition in domestic legislation where they are still lacking. As many
BCPs included in our case study illustrate, BCPs may also be used as tools for
the vindication of rights on land, territories, and resources. Finally, some believe
that BCPs, insofar as they are undergirded by a new ethic of stewardship, can
be used as “space opening” tools (Mulrennan & Bussières, 2020) to alternative,
non-naturalistic ontologies. In this, BCPs would stand as standard-bearers in the
struggle for making room for IPLCs’ identities.
BCPs and Ecological Scripts: Eco-Governmentality, Counter-Narratives,
and New Subjectivity
Is not such a reading excessively naïve? For such fundamental changes to take
place, there would first have to be profound transformations in Western/
European legal constructs and in their naturalistic underpinnings. The seven
BCPs that this chapter analyses show that, even where a domestic legislation
enshrines a local PIC procedure and further strengthens its application through
the express recognition of BCPs (see Table 11.1, Annex), there is no apparent
shift away from what Mario Blaser calls the Western or European “ontological
matrix” (Blaser, 2009). The way this naturalistic “ontological matrix” unfolds
in several of the BCPs under consideration, the interlacing of narratives and representations around biodiversity conservation, their apparent strategic reversals,
together with references to the ethic of stewardship, are invitations to consider
further what BCPs offer in terms of strategic use of hegemonic categories.
For this purpose, two central concepts will be used: scripts and
eco-governmentality. The seven BCPs included in our case study were examined together with background documentation, and our analysis is informed
by the extensive statutory and regulatory framework in which each was developed. These protocols were analysed as incorporating “scripts”. Scripts partake
in the “institutional and regulatory spaces in which the knowledges and practices are encoded, negotiated, and contested” (Peet & Watts, 1996, p. 11). They
are involved in the construction of social practices and identities. We posit that
scripts need to be grasped at the ontological level, which means that they reach
into radical assumptions about what kinds of things do or exist, their conditions of existence, relationships, attachments, and connectivity (Blaser, 2009). To
understand precisely what is at stake, let us follow the path of a script. Ontologies
express something about the real, the “conditions of possibility we live with”
(Mol, 1999); and for this reason, they are never given, “out there”, ready to be
picked up, but are the result of practices and “dynamic relations of hybrid assemblages” (Blaser, 2013, p. 552). They are always “in the making” (ibid.), “open
and contested” (Mol, 1999, p. 75). They “manifest as ‘stories’” or narratives and
through non-discursive aspects (Blaser, 2009, p. 877). Discursive (e.g. texts and
policies) and non-discursive elements (e.g. objects, conducts, and institutions) rest
upon theoretical knowledge, a “body of doctrine” made of concepts, ideologies,
and axioms. In European/Western ontologies, there is an ontological matrix