91
4
This feeling of being disempowered may lead to increased resistance against
conservation and result in wildlife such as elephants being attacked. The number of
elephants has, in recent years, gone down in Tanzania. Organized poaching and
smuggling of ivory to illegal markets in South-East Asia are usually blamed for
reduced elephant populations. It is, however, often forgotten that the top-down
manner in which most conservation is carried out leads to resistance against
conservation efforts from governments and international organizations. This again
may make it easier to recruit local people into poaching networks (Hübschle 2017).
In addition, elephant killings may also be seen as a message of protest against
conservation practice (Mariki et al. 2015).
In fact, resistance against conservation may follow different tactics including
nonviolent, militant or violent, discursive and formal-legal (Cavanagh and
Benjaminsen 2015). The first may be associated with various forms of ‘the weapons
of the weak’ (see 7 Chaps. 1 and 2). The second can be in the form of armed
rebellion or other forms of open violent resistance such as attacking rangers.
Discursive resistance will for instance be by attempting to influence policies and the
public debate in general. This usually happens through local leaders or local people
trying to influence outsiders (politicians, journalists, NGO representatives,
researchers) to speak for communities. Formal-legal resistance involves navigating
the law enforcement and justice system, which means administrative complaints and
taking cases to the courts.
The example with elephant killings definitely represents a form of violent
resistance, but at the same time, it may also be seen as an application of the ‘weapons
of the weak’. People’s efforts to present the death of the elephants in interviews with
us as an accident, is in line with this theory, as well as the villagers’ collective decision
of not exposing the names of people responsible for elephant killings (Mariki et al.
2015). Furthermore, Scott (1989, p. 56) argues that ‘when the act of everyday
resistance is meant to be noticed—meant to send a signal—as in the case of arson or
sabotage, then the resisters take special care to conceal themselves often behind a
facade of public conformity’.
Hence, rural people in Africa killing wildlife in frustration and as protests against
conservation is contrary to the picture often given by conservation organizations,
tourist agencies and African governments of conservation as not only benefitting
wildlife, but also local people. So, how has this harmonious image of African
conservation been established?
To try and answer this question, we believe it may help to make use of a discourse
perspective with an analytical distinction between discourses and practices. This
perspective enables the disclosing of differences between the way in which powerful
actors present their own practices and observations of these practices. In this chapter,
we focus on such discrepancies between what various actors say they do and what
they actually do.
We proceed by a brief discussion of how we see the differences between discourses
and practices. Then we introduce some main discourses on protected areas before we
discuss conservation practices through the presentation of one case study from
South Africa and one from India.
Conservation Discourses Versus Practices
4
This feeling of being disempowered may lead to increased resistance against
conservation and result in wildlife such as elephants being attacked. The number of
elephants has, in recent years, gone down in Tanzania. Organized poaching and
smuggling of ivory to illegal markets in South-East Asia are usually blamed for
reduced elephant populations. It is, however, often forgotten that the top-down
manner in which most conservation is carried out leads to resistance against
conservation efforts from governments and international organizations. This again
may make it easier to recruit local people into poaching networks (Hübschle 2017).
In addition, elephant killings may also be seen as a message of protest against
conservation practice (Mariki et al. 2015).
In fact, resistance against conservation may follow different tactics including
nonviolent, militant or violent, discursive and formal-legal (Cavanagh and
Benjaminsen 2015). The first may be associated with various forms of ‘the weapons
of the weak’ (see 7 Chaps. 1 and 2). The second can be in the form of armed
rebellion or other forms of open violent resistance such as attacking rangers.
Discursive resistance will for instance be by attempting to influence policies and the
public debate in general. This usually happens through local leaders or local people
trying to influence outsiders (politicians, journalists, NGO representatives,
researchers) to speak for communities. Formal-legal resistance involves navigating
the law enforcement and justice system, which means administrative complaints and
taking cases to the courts.
The example with elephant killings definitely represents a form of violent
resistance, but at the same time, it may also be seen as an application of the ‘weapons
of the weak’. People’s efforts to present the death of the elephants in interviews with
us as an accident, is in line with this theory, as well as the villagers’ collective decision
of not exposing the names of people responsible for elephant killings (Mariki et al.
2015). Furthermore, Scott (1989, p. 56) argues that ‘when the act of everyday
resistance is meant to be noticed—meant to send a signal—as in the case of arson or
sabotage, then the resisters take special care to conceal themselves often behind a
facade of public conformity’.
Hence, rural people in Africa killing wildlife in frustration and as protests against
conservation is contrary to the picture often given by conservation organizations,
tourist agencies and African governments of conservation as not only benefitting
wildlife, but also local people. So, how has this harmonious image of African
conservation been established?
To try and answer this question, we believe it may help to make use of a discourse
perspective with an analytical distinction between discourses and practices. This
perspective enables the disclosing of differences between the way in which powerful
actors present their own practices and observations of these practices. In this chapter,
we focus on such discrepancies between what various actors say they do and what
they actually do.
We proceed by a brief discussion of how we see the differences between discourses
and practices. Then we introduce some main discourses on protected areas before we
discuss conservation practices through the presentation of one case study from
South Africa and one from India.
Conservation Discourses Versus Practices