Paper long abstract:

Tourism is increasingly promoted by powerful organisations including the World Bank, national governments and donors as a key economic activity for Africa. The extensive claims attached to tourism as a force for ‘global good’ means that its supporters range from (amongst others) grassroots community groups, conservation scientists, national governments, private companies, the World Bank and international donors. These may seem like strange bedfellows, but it indicates the importance attached to tourism in debates about development, conservation and community empowerment. This paper examines whether ecotourism presents a challenge to neoliberalism or if it is compatible with the dominant global system. The growth of global tourism has drawn more and more places in the South into a neoliberal global economy, but in very specific ways; and this paper examines whether ecotourism is a means by which nature is ‘neoliberalised’. Neoliberalisation of nature can be briefly defined as a process whereby non-human phenomena are increasingly subject to market based systems of management and development (Castree 2003; 2007). However this paper will challenge singular and monolithic understandings of neoliberalism as a single ‘thing’ (see McCarthy and Prudham, 2005).

One of the core justifications for ecotourism is that nature can be conserved/saved precisely because of its ‘market value’ to ecotourists willing to pay to see and experience specific landscapes. While supporters of ecotourism development argue that natural resources, landscapes and wildlife have intrinsic, cultural and ecological values, they also point to their economic value which can be harnessed through the introduction of market based mechanisms (see McAfee, 1999). In effect, wildlife and landscapes can be sold in multiple ways: as images, products and destinations. This paper will examine how ecotourism relies on the neoliberalisation of nature through the transformation of natural resources into privately owned and globally ‘marketable goods’. In order to explore these debates, this paper will use the case of ecotourism development in Sub-Saharan Africa and will examine the power dynamics produced by the complex global networks involved in promoting and implementing ecotourism; it will pay particular attention to the increasingly close relationship between international environmental NGOs and the World Bank, and what implications they hold for meanings and practices of participation in community based natural resource management and ecotourism.

Paper long abstract:

Contemporary discussions regarding conservation in Africa highlight that both causal explanations of environmental change and their remedying policies are based on western-informed narratives or received wisdoms that have become accepted and uncontested environmental truth claims. However, the aim of this paper is to highlight the potential usefulness of narratives in the local context of conservation through an analysis of the role of myth, magic and song in guiding behaviour towards natural resource use and conservation. Specifically, the paper will engage with Khwe San wildlife stories and elephant wisdom that were collected in the villages of Chetto, Omega III and Mashambo of the West Caprivi Game Park during a five month period of fieldwork conducted in Namibia. Discussion of this collection of fieldwork will highlight how these myths can assist in managing one of the most significant threats to rural people’s livelihood and the long-term conservation of one of Namibia’s most charismatic species: the increasing incidences of human elephant conflict.

Paper long abstract:

Co-author: Therese Green

Kenya’s Maasai have become increasingly integrated into an economically globalized world, primarily due to growth in the tourism industry. Allied to this has been the gradual ‘neoliberalization of nature’, bringing with it a host of concerns for many communities ranging from the individualization of land tenure to the commodification of culture.

One particular manifestation of this amongst the Maasai, as with many other communities within and beyond Kenya, has been the homogenization of culture, to the extent that distinct front stage and back stage ‘realities’ of Maasai-ness now exist. The former (represented by the ‘traditional’) provides a veneer, satisfying tourist demands and sustaining a growing ecotourism industry. Beyond the veneer there exists a highly dynamic and rapidly changing reality, one characterised by numerous tensions and contradictions.

This paper presents the research undertaken in Loitokitok District, an area predominantly occupied by Maasai of the Kisonko section. The District was long spared the influences of rural ‘modernization’ and the social, economic and environmental calamities which subsequently beset many other parts of Maasailand. Yet more recently tourism has started to impact on the lives of many of Loitokitok’s population.

This paper focuses on the aspirations and perceived opportunities conveyed by children and their parents in light of Loitokitok’s integration into the global tourism industry. Furthermore it explores how these changes have started to impact upon the ways in which respondents value their cultural norms and traditions and how many (especially girls) have started to challenge their own Maasai identity. The paper finally examines how these changes have started to have a tangible impact upon families, most notably through new attitudes towards formal schooling (again, especially in respect to girls). This actor-oriented perspective of ecotourism’s local impacts highlights the complexity of cultural transition and the multiple tensions and paradoxes associated with it.