Green Militarization

Anti-Poaching Efforts and the Spatial Contours of Kruger National Park

Bibliographic Data

ID8375186
AuthorsElizabeth Lunstrum (0000-0003-0097-4596, York University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume104
Issue4
Pages816-832
Publication date2014-07-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnnals of the Association of American Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-5608 • E-ISSN: 1467-8306
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00045608.2014.912545
OpenAlexW2039240066
LanguageEN
Citations received223
References cited45

Building from scholarship charting the complex, often ambivalent, relationship between military activity and the environment, and the more recent critical geographical work on militarization, this article sheds light on a particular meshing of militarization and conservation: green militarization. An intensifying yet surprisingly understudied trend around the world, this is the use of military and paramilitary personnel, training, technologies, and partnerships in the pursuit of conservation efforts. I introduce this concept, first, as a call for more sustained scholarly investigation into the militarization of conservation practice. More modestly, the article offers its own contribution to this end by turning to South Africa's Kruger National Park, the world's most concentrated site of commercial rhino poaching. Focusing on the state's multilayered and increasingly lethal militarized response to what is itself a highly militarized practice, I illustrate how the spatial qualities of protected areas matter immensely for the convergence of conservation and militarization and the concrete forms this convergence takes. For Kruger, these include its status as a national park framed by a semiporous international border and its expansive, often dense terrain. Steering clear of spatial determinism, I equally show how spatial contours authorize militarization only once they articulate with particular assumptions and values; for Kruger these amount to political–ecological values regarding the nation-state, its sovereignty, and its natural heritage. The result is an intensifying interlocking of conservation and militarization that frequently produces unforeseen consequences

Archaeology · Geography · Militarization · National park · Poaching · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Archaeological Research and Protection · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law

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