Koot
Biographic Data
| ID | 42749 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Koot |
| FAMILY NAME | Koot |
| SIGNATURE | KOOT |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Johannesburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8625-7525 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 200 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Enjoying contradictions
This article uses Debord's ‘spectacle’ and Lacanian psychoanalysis to theorize tourism authenticity as a fantasy (i.e. a story we tell ourselves to make sense of the world). Some tourism types sell ‘authenticity’ by offering experiences of ‘pristine’ nature and ‘exotic’ people. Often, such tourist destinations are ‘spectacularized’, referring to the triumph of representations in modern capitalism that creates an ‘authentic’ reality through repeti…
A proposition to interrogate the spectacle of Indigenous Peoples in biodiversity loss and climate change governance
A Proposition to Interrogate Limitarianism in Sustainable Tourism for Redistribution and Justice
This article engages with sustainable tourism as an excessive form of consumption that needs to be further interrogated through “limitarianism,” a philosophy and ethics for an upper limit of wealth. It critically examines the role of sustainable tourism in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) 30 × 30 initiative, which aims to conserve 30 percent of the Earth by 2030. Sustainable tourism is often presented as a financial mechan…
A force field for funding
Increasingly, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have become dependent on major donors. Known as philanthrocapitalism, this was critiqued for a lack of democracy and downward accountability, leading to a concentration of power among a privileged few. Simultaneously, the call for localisation increased, which refers to more inclusion and empowerment of INGOs’ local partners. In this article, we interrogate how Dutch INGOs deal wi…
Indigenous Liberators , Vrijheidsmuseum (Freedom Museum), Groesbeek, the Netherlands, May 2, 2025 to November 30, 2025
This review analyses the exhibition Indigenous Liberators at the Vrijheidsmuseum in Groesbeek, the Netherlands. The exhibition explores the often neglected role of North American Indigenous soldiers in the liberation of the Netherlands in World War 2. Indigenous Liberators shows how Indigenous participation was motivated by diverse factors, from resisting fascism to asserting cultural identity. Despite facing discrimination in the military, many …
Resettlement in Tsintsabis, Namibia
After Namibian Independence in 1990, group resettlement farms became crucial in development planning to address historically built-up inequalities that were largely based on land evictions for nature conservation and large-scale livestock ranching. Resettlement aims to provide marginalised groups with opportunities to start self-sufficient small-scale agriculture. This article addresses the history of the Tsintsabis resettlement farm, where at fi…
Fossilized conservation, or the unsustainability of saving nature in South Africa
This paper argues that the conservation sector in South Africa is fossilized - unsustainable, outmoded and resistant to change - in two integrated ways. First, it is completely dependent on and steeped in fossil fuels and mineral extraction. The historical development of the South African economy's reliance on fossil and mineral resources provides the basis for this dependency but has since tentacularized into the very fabric of conservation and …
Introduction
For many decades, southern Africa has been at the forefront of global conservation paradigms and practices, ranging from protected area models and community-based conservation to transfrontier parks and, more recently, the wildlife economy. A key goal of many of these was to meet conservation and development goals, something that often proved elusive. In fact, what has been consistent across these conservation strategies is a continuation of many…
The new green apartheid? Race, capital and logics of enclosure in South Africa's wildlife economy
In this paper, we explore relations between race, capital and wildlife conservation in the town of Hoedspruit and its surroundings, which has developed into one of the main centres of the lucrative and rapidly growing 'wildlife economy' in South Africa. Behind its image as a shining 'green' example of wildlife-based development is a highly unequal and racialised state of affairs that is deeply unsustainable. At the core of these dynamics are priv…
Articulations of inferiority
In southern Africa, the indigenous Bushmen (San) have for long been positioned as an inferior group. First, in pre-colonial paternalist relationships that included slavery and several types of serfdom. Next, they had an inferior position under colonial paternalism (‘baasskap’) originating at white settler farms and last, they experience inferiority again in relation to the contemporary, mostly black, elites, including state officials. This paper …
Compatible with Conviviality? Exploring African Ecotourism and Sport Hunting for Transformative Conservation
Recent decades have shown the increased popularity of market-based instruments (MBIs) for conservation despite mixed social and ecological outcomes. This paper explores the extent to which two crucial MBIs, namely, ecotourism and sport hunting, are compatible with 'convivial conservation', a novel, integrated approach that explores conservation beyond capitalism. We developed an analytical framework of five key features for transformative change …
Black Belonging, White Belonging
Evictions have been shown to be a mechanism of primitive accumulation in nature conservation. This paper adds an historical analysis to the discussion on primitive accumulation in conservation by exploring the seemingly innocuous mechanism of White belonging to land in South Africa's private nature reserves. Contemporary articulations of White belonging are replete with stories and images of White male “pioneers” from the colonial era who, upon a…
The spectacle of inclusive female anti-poaching
Staged ‘spectacles’ are increasingly becoming important in communicating potential solutions for environmental challenges such as poaching. In this paper, we explore the spectacle of ‘inclusive female anti-poaching’ (IFAP) through an analysis of the Akashinga and Black Mamba projects in Zimbabwe and South Africa respectively. Both IFAP initiatives emphasize the inclusion of local women in anti-poaching. Such projects gain increasing public attent…
Environmentality, green grabbing, and neoliberal conservation
Against the background of neoliberal conservation and green grabbing, this paper investigates an ecotourism initiative through the notion of ‘multiple environmentalities’ (neoliberal, disciplinary, sovereign and truth), which concerns the governance of people for environmental causes. We apply this to the inhabitants of Batu Katak, Sumatra, Indonesia, where the Green Life Project has been established next to Gunung Leuser National Park as a Priva…
Conservation Science and Discursive Violence
We respond to two rejoinders to our review article “Science for Success,” which proposed fuller contextualization of epistemological approach, researcher position and interests in conservation research. This way readers—including reviewers and journal editors—can better understand and interpret findings. We suggest this contextualization is particularly important when conservation and development professionals undertake research about programs th…
Transformation beyond conservation
Multiple proposals for transforming biodiversity conservation have been put forward, yet critical exploration of how transformative change is conceptualised in this context is lacking. Drawing on transformations to sustainability scholarship, we review recent proposals for transformative change in biodiversity conservation, considering the suggested goals and means of transformation. We outline the crucial role for critical social scientific inqu…
Conservation Science and Discursive Violence
We respond to two rejoinders (Dickman et al. 2021; Naidoo et al. 2021) to our review article Science for Success (Koot et al. 2020), which proposed fuller contextualization of epistemological approach, researcher position and interests in conservation research. This way readers—including reviewers and journal editors—can more accurately understand and interpret findings. We suggest this contextualization is particularly important when conservatio…
Donors on tour
Increasingly NGOs organize trips for their ‘major donors’ to visit development projects with the aim to enhance funding streams and fortify donor relations. Building on growing discussions of ‘philanthrocapitalism’ as a novel form of international development financing, we analyze such ‘donor trips’ as a unique tourism niche termed ‘philanthrotourism’. Based on empirical research concerning two such trips to Sub-Saharan Africa, we argue that phil…
Selling captive nature
Ecotourism has become an increasingly important market-based practice in nature conservation. Several scholars and non-governmental organizations have discussed this as a commodification of nature in the context of capitalist expansion, but only a few have examined how value is produced in this process. Focusing on ecotourism in Tangkahan, in the Sumatra Island of Indonesia, this paper looks at how value is produced in human-elephant encounters. …
Enjoying extinction
From 2007 to 2015, rhino poaching grew rapidly in and around Kruger National Park, South Africa. And though poaching numbers have declined since then, the 'poaching crisis' and its consequences continue to influence rhetoric and practice in the area, including continuing public outcries that the rhino is close to extinction. This discourse of extinction is also prevalent among the luxurious tourist lodges on private nature reserves of the Greater…
Popular Philanthrocapitalism? The Potential and Pitfalls of Online Empowerment in “Free” Nature 2.0 Initiatives
This article investigates assertions that new philanthropic web 2.0 initiatives can empower Internet users to further social and environmental change. It focuses on two ostensibly “free” web 2.0 initiatives aimed at nature conservation: “Greenvolved” and “Safari Challenge Zoo Adventure.” With Greenvolved, clicking on one’s favorite projects is supposed to support conservation initiatives whereas in Safari Challenge users interact through gaming o…
Science for Success—A Conflict of Interest? Researcher Position and Reflexivity in Socio-Ecological Research for CBNRM in Namibia
This paper emphasizes the importance of researcher position and reflexivity for professionals in the ecological and development sciences. We draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze a selection of scientific papers written by Namibian Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) professionals and their relationships with public discourse regarding this conservation and development program. These papers mainly show “success” whi…
The limitations of research codes and contracts
Research among hunter-gatherers has often been exploitative, based on neo-colonial and/or contemporary socio-economic power imbalances. Consequently, research codes and contracts have been created with the important goal of empowering them; such instruments seem to be on the rise globally. In this article, we focus on this phenomenon among the San of Southern Africa, and we contribute to the professional and public debate on such formalising inst…
In the way
As former mobile foraging peoples, the indigenous Hai//om San of Namibia lost most of their land - including Etosha National Park and Mangetti West - to other groups and the state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After independence (1990), the government redistributed some of this land to various expropriated groups. In the following overview, we delve into this complex history to argue that the recent decision by the Hai//om (2015) to …
The Limits of Economic Benefits
In the global neoliberal ecological discourse, trophy hunting proponents often articulate the economic benefits it creates for local communities, especially through jobs and meat. Trophy hunting revenues are also crucial to support the overall operational costs of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). The aim of this paper is to show that this rather simplified dominant discourse, based only on “benefits”, sells short the local rea…
"Speaking Power to "Post-Truth
Given a history in political ecology of challenging hegemonic “scientific” narratives concerning environmental problems, the current political moment presents a potent conundrum: how to (continue to) critically engage with narratives of environmental change while confronting the “populist” promotion of “alternative facts.” We ask how political ecologists might situate themselves vis-à-vis the presently growing power of contemporary authoritarian …
Transformation beyond conservation
Multiple proposals for transforming biodiversity conservation have been put forward, yet critical exploration of how transformative change is conceptualised in this context is lacking. Drawing on transformations to sustainability scholarship, we review recent proposals for transformative change in biodiversity conservation, considering the suggested goals and means of transformation. We outline the crucial role for critical social scientific inqu…
Belonging, Indigeneity, Land and Nature in Southern Africa under Neoliberal Capitalism
In November 2017, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stepped down after ruling the country for 37 years. He was replaced by his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa. In January 2018, when Mnangagwa h
Introduction. Nature 2.0
Giving Land (Back)? The Meaning of Land in the Indigenous Politics of the South Kalahari Bushmen Land Claim, South Africa
In this article, we analyse the land claim of the South Kalahari Bushmen (≠Khomani) to reflect critically on the South African land restitution process in relation to their contemporary marginalised socio-economic situation. South Kalahari Bushmen were gradually displaced between the 1930s and 1970s and, after apartheid, they were reinstated as landowners in 1999. This does not mean, however, that the historical injustice of land dispossession is…
Enjoying extinction
From 2007 to 2015, rhino poaching grew rapidly in and around Kruger National Park, South Africa. And though poaching numbers have declined since then, the 'poaching crisis' and its consequences continue to influence rhetoric and practice in the area, including continuing public outcries that the rhino is close to extinction. This discourse of extinction is also prevalent among the luxurious tourist lodges on private nature reserves of the Greater…
The Limits of Economic Benefits
In the global neoliberal ecological discourse, trophy hunting proponents often articulate the economic benefits it creates for local communities, especially through jobs and meat. Trophy hunting revenues are also crucial to support the overall operational costs of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). The aim of this paper is to show that this rather simplified dominant discourse, based only on “benefits”, sells short the local rea…
The new green apartheid? Race, capital and logics of enclosure in South Africa's wildlife economy
In this paper, we explore relations between race, capital and wildlife conservation in the town of Hoedspruit and its surroundings, which has developed into one of the main centres of the lucrative and rapidly growing 'wildlife economy' in South Africa. Behind its image as a shining 'green' example of wildlife-based development is a highly unequal and racialised state of affairs that is deeply unsustainable. At the core of these dynamics are priv…
In the way
As former mobile foraging peoples, the indigenous Hai//om San of Namibia lost most of their land - including Etosha National Park and Mangetti West - to other groups and the state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After independence (1990), the government redistributed some of this land to various expropriated groups. In the following overview, we delve into this complex history to argue that the recent decision by the Hai//om (2015) to …
White Namibians in tourism and the politics of belonging through Bushmen
Namibian Bushmen, such as the Hai//om and the Ju/'hoansi, are increasingly involved in the growing, white-dominated tourism industry. In this, white Namibians tend to position Bushmen and themselves as people of nature and conservationists. Elsewhere, whites from southern Africa have avoided contact with blacks by identifying more with nature than with people. This has been an important element in their "politics of belonging" to the land. From t…
Fossilized conservation, or the unsustainability of saving nature in South Africa
This paper argues that the conservation sector in South Africa is fossilized - unsustainable, outmoded and resistant to change - in two integrated ways. First, it is completely dependent on and steeped in fossil fuels and mineral extraction. The historical development of the South African economy's reliance on fossil and mineral resources provides the basis for this dependency but has since tentacularized into the very fabric of conservation and …
Ju/'hoansi Lodging in a Namibian Conservancy
Following Ingold's dwelling perspective, the world comes into being because an organism/person is continuously interacting with his/her environment through bodily activity. Ingold contrasts dwelling with building; in the latter, people construct the world cognitively before they can live in it. In this paper, we add the concept of 'lodging' to refer to a situation in which people live in an environment that contains increasing dominating powers. …
The presentation of Bushmen in cultural tourism
This article examines images of Bushmen in Namibian cultural tourism from two angles: that of the tourists and that of the community-based tourism provider. By looking at the tourist activities offered at Treesleeper Camp, it will be shown that in host-guest encounters, tourists images of (Hai//om) Bushmen interrelate with the images presented by the local hosts, and that tourists perceptions and the images sought to be transmitted by the communi…
Selling captive nature
Ecotourism has become an increasingly important market-based practice in nature conservation. Several scholars and non-governmental organizations have discussed this as a commodification of nature in the context of capitalist expansion, but only a few have examined how value is produced in this process. Focusing on ecotourism in Tangkahan, in the Sumatra Island of Indonesia, this paper looks at how value is produced in human-elephant encounters. …
Science for Success—A Conflict of Interest? Researcher Position and Reflexivity in Socio-Ecological Research for CBNRM in Namibia
This paper emphasizes the importance of researcher position and reflexivity for professionals in the ecological and development sciences. We draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze a selection of scientific papers written by Namibian Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) professionals and their relationships with public discourse regarding this conservation and development program. These papers mainly show “success” whi…
The limitations of research codes and contracts
Research among hunter-gatherers has often been exploitative, based on neo-colonial and/or contemporary socio-economic power imbalances. Consequently, research codes and contracts have been created with the important goal of empowering them; such instruments seem to be on the rise globally. In this article, we focus on this phenomenon among the San of Southern Africa, and we contribute to the professional and public debate on such formalising inst…
Perpetuating power through autoethnography
In this article, I reflect on my longitudinal relation with the indigenous Hai//om Bushmen of the resettlement farm Tsintsabis, in Namibia, exploring my position of power as a development fieldworker. I have been connected to the Hai//om since 1999, doing research and living and working with them while continuously moving between being an ‘outsider’ and an ‘insider’. As an MA student, a development worker/boss (baas) and a PhD researcher, my know…
Introduction
For many decades, southern Africa has been at the forefront of global conservation paradigms and practices, ranging from protected area models and community-based conservation to transfrontier parks and, more recently, the wildlife economy. A key goal of many of these was to meet conservation and development goals, something that often proved elusive. In fact, what has been consistent across these conservation strategies is a continuation of many…
Immaterial Indigenous Modernities in the Struggle against Illegal Fencing in the N≠a Jaqna Conservancy, Namibia
For several years, livestock farmers from different parts of Namibia have settled in the N≠a Jaqna Conservancy - an area mostly inhabited by San (Bushmen) - and have illegally erected fences to keep livestock. As a result of this encroachment, communal land in N≠a Jaqna has become de facto privatised. In response, the local San present themselves as the 'indigenous' inhabitants, even though many of them do not originate from the area. They have m…
Authenticity and the contradictions of the “ecotourism script”
Tourism in Ghana has been developing rapidly over the last decade. By marketing over a dozen “community ecotourism” sites, particularly around monkey and forest sanctuaries, Ghana hopes to attract travellers to spend money in the country and so aid local development and protect natural resources. This paper analyses this trend, outlining several contradictions in the country’s national branding of “authenticity” in ecotourism and how this takes l…
Black Belonging, White Belonging
Evictions have been shown to be a mechanism of primitive accumulation in nature conservation. This paper adds an historical analysis to the discussion on primitive accumulation in conservation by exploring the seemingly innocuous mechanism of White belonging to land in South Africa's private nature reserves. Contemporary articulations of White belonging are replete with stories and images of White male “pioneers” from the colonial era who, upon a…
Conservation Science and Discursive Violence
We respond to two rejoinders to our review article “Science for Success,” which proposed fuller contextualization of epistemological approach, researcher position and interests in conservation research. This way readers—including reviewers and journal editors—can better understand and interpret findings. We suggest this contextualization is particularly important when conservation and development professionals undertake research about programs th…
Donors on tour
Increasingly NGOs organize trips for their ‘major donors’ to visit development projects with the aim to enhance funding streams and fortify donor relations. Building on growing discussions of ‘philanthrocapitalism’ as a novel form of international development financing, we analyze such ‘donor trips’ as a unique tourism niche termed ‘philanthrotourism’. Based on empirical research concerning two such trips to Sub-Saharan Africa, we argue that phil…
Old Wine in a New Bottle
The Khwe of Namibia. Foragers between Game, Tourism, and Politics
The Namibian Khwe Bushmen live in the Bwabwata National Park, where they are highly affected by the park's history and conservation activities. Following Ingold's dwelling perspective, the world comes into being because a person is continuously interacting with his/her environment. This contrasted with building, in which (wo)man constructs the world cognitively before (s)he can live in it. We apply a third notion, lodging, to refer to a situation…
The presentation of Bushmen in cultural tourism
This article examines images of Bushmen in Namibian cultural tourism from two angles: that of the tourists and that of the community-based tourism provider. By looking at the tourist activities offered at Treesleeper Camp, it will be shown that in host-guest encounters, tourists images of (Hai//om) Bushmen interrelate with the images presented by the local hosts, and that tourists perceptions and the images sought to be transmitted by the communi…
White Namibians in tourism and the politics of belonging through Bushmen
Namibian Bushmen, such as the Hai//om and the Ju/'hoansi, are increasingly involved in the growing, white-dominated tourism industry. In this, white Namibians tend to position Bushmen and themselves as people of nature and conservationists. Elsewhere, whites from southern Africa have avoided contact with blacks by identifying more with nature than with people. This has been an important element in their "politics of belonging" to the land. From t…
Cultural ecotourism as an indigenous modernity
Nature&s; is often the main attraction of so-called &s;ecotourism&s;. Using an interpretative approach, this chapter explores the indigenous &s;people of nature&s; –in particular the Bushmen of Namibia – who play a crucial role in cultural ecotourism. It focuses on ecotourism&s;s conflation with &s;ethnic tourism&s;, &s;indigenous tourism&s; or &s;cultural tourism&s;. Therefore, the use of &s;ecotourism&s; is focused on indigenous peoples&s; enga…
Perpetuating power through autoethnography
In this article, I reflect on my longitudinal relation with the indigenous Hai//om Bushmen of the resettlement farm Tsintsabis, in Namibia, exploring my position of power as a development fieldworker. I have been connected to the Hai//om since 1999, doing research and living and working with them while continuously moving between being an ‘outsider’ and an ‘insider’. As an MA student, a development worker/boss (baas) and a PhD researcher, my know…
Introduction. Nature 2.0
Structural Belonging At Home in the Okavango
Creating Africas
Creating Africas is a worthwhile addition to existing literature on nature conservation, in particular for scholars interested in South Africa. The book provides an in-depth historical account of the Dukuduku Forest and its surroundings, the iSimangaliso (St Lucia) Wetland Park, and how this area has more recently become subject to land claims. This is complemented by well-documented ethnographic research and a clear overview of the different int…
The Khwe of Namibia. Foragers between Game, Tourism, and Politics
The Namibian Khwe Bushmen live in the Bwabwata National Park, where they are highly affected by the park's history and conservation activities. Following Ingold's dwelling perspective, the world comes into being because a person is continuously interacting with his/her environment. This contrasted with building, in which (wo)man constructs the world cognitively before (s)he can live in it. We apply a third notion, lodging, to refer to a situation…
Authenticity and the contradictions of the “ecotourism script”
Tourism in Ghana has been developing rapidly over the last decade. By marketing over a dozen “community ecotourism” sites, particularly around monkey and forest sanctuaries, Ghana hopes to attract travellers to spend money in the country and so aid local development and protect natural resources. This paper analyses this trend, outlining several contradictions in the country’s national branding of “authenticity” in ecotourism and how this takes l…
Old Wine in a New Bottle
Ju/'hoansi Lodging in a Namibian Conservancy
Following Ingold's dwelling perspective, the world comes into being because an organism/person is continuously interacting with his/her environment through bodily activity. Ingold contrasts dwelling with building; in the latter, people construct the world cognitively before they can live in it. In this paper, we add the concept of 'lodging' to refer to a situation in which people live in an environment that contains increasing dominating powers. …
In the way
As former mobile foraging peoples, the indigenous Hai//om San of Namibia lost most of their land - including Etosha National Park and Mangetti West - to other groups and the state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After independence (1990), the government redistributed some of this land to various expropriated groups. In the following overview, we delve into this complex history to argue that the recent decision by the Hai//om (2015) to …
The Limits of Economic Benefits
In the global neoliberal ecological discourse, trophy hunting proponents often articulate the economic benefits it creates for local communities, especially through jobs and meat. Trophy hunting revenues are also crucial to support the overall operational costs of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). The aim of this paper is to show that this rather simplified dominant discourse, based only on “benefits”, sells short the local rea…
Giving Land (Back)? The Meaning of Land in the Indigenous Politics of the South Kalahari Bushmen Land Claim, South Africa
In this article, we analyse the land claim of the South Kalahari Bushmen (≠Khomani) to reflect critically on the South African land restitution process in relation to their contemporary marginalised socio-economic situation. South Kalahari Bushmen were gradually displaced between the 1930s and 1970s and, after apartheid, they were reinstated as landowners in 1999. This does not mean, however, that the historical injustice of land dispossession is…
Immaterial Indigenous Modernities in the Struggle against Illegal Fencing in the N≠a Jaqna Conservancy, Namibia
For several years, livestock farmers from different parts of Namibia have settled in the N≠a Jaqna Conservancy - an area mostly inhabited by San (Bushmen) - and have illegally erected fences to keep livestock. As a result of this encroachment, communal land in N≠a Jaqna has become de facto privatised. In response, the local San present themselves as the 'indigenous' inhabitants, even though many of them do not originate from the area. They have m…
Belonging, Indigeneity, Land and Nature in Southern Africa under Neoliberal Capitalism
In November 2017, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe stepped down after ruling the country for 37 years. He was replaced by his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa. In January 2018, when Mnangagwa h
"Speaking Power to "Post-Truth
Given a history in political ecology of challenging hegemonic “scientific” narratives concerning environmental problems, the current political moment presents a potent conundrum: how to (continue to) critically engage with narratives of environmental change while confronting the “populist” promotion of “alternative facts.” We ask how political ecologists might situate themselves vis-à-vis the presently growing power of contemporary authoritarian …
Popular Philanthrocapitalism? The Potential and Pitfalls of Online Empowerment in “Free” Nature 2.0 Initiatives
This article investigates assertions that new philanthropic web 2.0 initiatives can empower Internet users to further social and environmental change. It focuses on two ostensibly “free” web 2.0 initiatives aimed at nature conservation: “Greenvolved” and “Safari Challenge Zoo Adventure.” With Greenvolved, clicking on one’s favorite projects is supposed to support conservation initiatives whereas in Safari Challenge users interact through gaming o…
Science for Success—A Conflict of Interest? Researcher Position and Reflexivity in Socio-Ecological Research for CBNRM in Namibia
This paper emphasizes the importance of researcher position and reflexivity for professionals in the ecological and development sciences. We draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze a selection of scientific papers written by Namibian Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) professionals and their relationships with public discourse regarding this conservation and development program. These papers mainly show “success” whi…
The limitations of research codes and contracts
Research among hunter-gatherers has often been exploitative, based on neo-colonial and/or contemporary socio-economic power imbalances. Consequently, research codes and contracts have been created with the important goal of empowering them; such instruments seem to be on the rise globally. In this article, we focus on this phenomenon among the San of Southern Africa, and we contribute to the professional and public debate on such formalising inst…
Transformation beyond conservation
Multiple proposals for transforming biodiversity conservation have been put forward, yet critical exploration of how transformative change is conceptualised in this context is lacking. Drawing on transformations to sustainability scholarship, we review recent proposals for transformative change in biodiversity conservation, considering the suggested goals and means of transformation. We outline the crucial role for critical social scientific inqu…
Conservation Science and Discursive Violence
We respond to two rejoinders (Dickman et al. 2021; Naidoo et al. 2021) to our review article Science for Success (Koot et al. 2020), which proposed fuller contextualization of epistemological approach, researcher position and interests in conservation research. This way readers—including reviewers and journal editors—can more accurately understand and interpret findings. We suggest this contextualization is particularly important when conservatio…
Donors on tour
Increasingly NGOs organize trips for their ‘major donors’ to visit development projects with the aim to enhance funding streams and fortify donor relations. Building on growing discussions of ‘philanthrocapitalism’ as a novel form of international development financing, we analyze such ‘donor trips’ as a unique tourism niche termed ‘philanthrotourism’. Based on empirical research concerning two such trips to Sub-Saharan Africa, we argue that phil…
Selling captive nature
Ecotourism has become an increasingly important market-based practice in nature conservation. Several scholars and non-governmental organizations have discussed this as a commodification of nature in the context of capitalist expansion, but only a few have examined how value is produced in this process. Focusing on ecotourism in Tangkahan, in the Sumatra Island of Indonesia, this paper looks at how value is produced in human-elephant encounters. …
Enjoying extinction
From 2007 to 2015, rhino poaching grew rapidly in and around Kruger National Park, South Africa. And though poaching numbers have declined since then, the 'poaching crisis' and its consequences continue to influence rhetoric and practice in the area, including continuing public outcries that the rhino is close to extinction. This discourse of extinction is also prevalent among the luxurious tourist lodges on private nature reserves of the Greater…
Political science (32 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Law (20 works) · Geography (17 works) · Tourism (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Archaeology (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · Ecology (13 works) · Environmental ethics (13 works)