Paper short abstract:

This paper questions how anthropologists should represent visible cases of unsustainable resource use, against the entangled backdrop of ethical responsibilities to human subjects, concerns for wildlife and biodiversity, and personal dispositions of the individual researcher.

Paper long abstract:

Environmental narratives play a significant role in shaping the political dimensions of biodiversity conservation. Project stakeholders often have diverse subjective accounts of what the most pressing problems are, how these problems should be addressed, and what the ideal solutions should look like. In many cases, the dominant narrative forwarded by conservationists is primarily informed by findings from environmental sciences. This scientific model of framing conservation problems, however, can contradict the narrative accounts of local communities, who often conceptualize environmental problems and solutions in divergent ways. Crisis narratives of extreme ecological degradation can be used to justify increased state control over resources and resource users, through top-down environmental regulation. Bearing in mind the power of environmental narratives to influence conservation practice, this paper explores the moral dilemmas facing anthropologists who conduct conservation-related research. It focuses on the question of how anthropologists should represent visible cases of unsustainable resource use, against the entangled backdrop of ethical responsibilities to human subjects, concerns for wildlife and biodiversity, and personal dispositions of the individual researcher. The paper draws from ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a coastal fishing village, located inside the catchment area of a marine park in southeastern Tanzania. It discusses some of the difficulties and complexities associated with attempting to simultaneously document the socioeconomic impacts of marine conservation on a resource-dependent fishing community, and the persistence of dynamite fishing inside of the park's catchment area. Ultimately, the paper calls for greater attention to the positionality of the anthropologist in producing written narratives that could affect future conservation practice.