Paper short abstract:

Trophy hunting in Namibian CBNRM is critically scrutinised; a rather simplified discourse on economic benefits sells short to local realities of indigenous groups. I argue that the ontological concept of 'social affordances' to analyse trophy hunting provides for a much more complete debate.

Paper long abstract:

In the global neoliberal ecological discourse, trophy hunting proponents often articulate the economic benefits it creates for local communities, especially jobs and meat. Moreover, larger revenues are crucial to support the management of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes. In Namibia, for example, a large and rather powerful group of NGOs, donors and private trophy hunting associations (including the WWF and the Namibian Professional Hunting Association, NAPHA) keep repeating the importance of trophy hunting for CBNRM in academic and public debates, but without seriously reflecting on their own (researcher) position. The aim of this paper is to show that this rather simplified dominant discourse sells short to the local realities of some of the indigenous Khwe and Ju/'hoansi Bushmen (San) in the Bwabwata National Park and the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, Namibia, respectively. Generally, the Khwe and Ju/'hoansi are indeed in favour of economic benefits, but these need to be better contextualised as very limited in the first place and they come together with a variety of important social dynamics. Building on Gibson and Ingold, I use the ontological concept of 'social affordances'—thereby transcending the focus on economic benefits—to analyse trophy hunting in Bwabwata and Nyae Nyae. This leads me to argue for an expansion of the debate beyond economic benefits to the often overlooked social realm, to better understand the multiple experiences, perceptions and meanings (for good and ill) of local actors on trophy hunting and its main players.