Resisting Legibility

State and Conservation Boundaries, Pastoralism, and the Risk of Dispossession through Geospatial Surveys in Tanzania

Bibliographic Data

ID8239855
AuthorsJevgeniy Bluwstein (0000-0002-1162-5028, University of Fribourg, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume6
Issue1
Publication date2019-07-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRural Landscapes Society Environment History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2002-0104 • E-ISSN: 2002-0104
PublisherStockholm University Press (PUBLISHER • SE)
DOI10.16993/rl.53
OpenAlexW2958394165
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited43

This article illustrates how the introduction of modern geospatial surveying technology in Tanzania has failed to resolve a boundary conflict between the state and nature conservation authorities on one side and a rural community of pastoralists on the other. Far from fixing a contested geography by resurveying its boundaries and facilitating stakeholder participation for conflict resolution, digital cartography has made visible and reanimated the buried history of mismatched and conflicting logics between state-led territorial administration and conservation, and pastoral land use practices. The article shows how state and conservation officials have relied on the insights from fact-finding exercises to dismiss rural land use practices that are not represented in official maps. Pastoralists resist these state- and conservation-centred cartographic practices of fixed boundaries to maintain a historical, vital geography of seasonal access to pastures and water. By way of conclusion, this article highlights the pitfalls of geospatial land surveys and fact-finding exercises that unearth and lay bare a boundary conflict previously hidden from the state’s view. Through enhanced legibility, rural communities may become visible to the state, risking dispossession and evictions

Boundary (topology · Business · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Geospatial analysis · Legibility · Livestock · Pastoralism · Political science · Public relations · Remote sensing · Stakeholder · State (computer science · Tanzania · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology · Transboundary Water Resource Management