Complexities of multispecies coexistence

Animal diseases and diverging modes of ordering at the wildlife-livestock interface in Southern Africa

Bibliographic Data

ID4464890
AuthorsArjan Van Dam (0000-0002-2465-8320, KWR Water Research Institute, corresponding author), W Van Engelen (0000-0002-2426-5180, University of Cologne), D Müller-Mahn (0000-0001-5266-195X, University of Bonn), Sheila Agha, Sheila B Agha (0000-0002-5480-6865, University of Bonn), Sandra Junglen (0000-0002-3799-6011, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Christian Borgemeister (0000-0001-8067-0335, University of Bonn), Michael Bollig (0000-0001-7133-6132, University of Cologne)
Year2024
Volume7
Issue1
Pages353-374
Publication date2024-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/25148486231160637
OpenAlexW4366290442
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited47

The transmission of diseases between wildlife and livestock poses a major challenge to both conservation and livestock sectors in Southern Africa. Focusing on the cases of foot and mouth disease and trypanosomiasis in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, this article explores the complexity of coexistence between humans, livestock, wildlife, vectors and pathogens. Multispecies coexistence, we suggest, is best understood not only through the relations between species, but also as characterized by a collision of modes of ordering. Drawing on expert interviews and a discourse analysis of policy documents and reports, we identify three modes of ordering coexistence: a categorical and increasingly disfavoured mode of species eradication, a territorial mode focused on containment and separation, and an infrastructural mode premised on connectivity between populations, landscapes and ecosystems. Together, these different modes of ordering pose a challenge to scientific knowledge production; where uncertainties present themselves not so much in the form of ignorance or knowledge gaps, but rather in the form of ambiguity: of knowing diseases and species differently. In this view, living with pathogens becomes a matter of recognizing the partiality of knowledge and the positionality of knowledge producers and users, as well as highlighting potential sites of alignment

Agroforestry · Ambiguity · Biology · Business · Economics · Environmental planning · Environmental resource management · Geography · Ignorance · Livestock · Political science · Wildlife · Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology · Computer Science · Viral Infections and Vectors · Zoonotic diseases and public health · Ecology