Paper short abstract:

The paper explores alternatives to ontologies of protected areas as either pure nature or lost social resources by questioning the foundational dichotomies on which much conservation efforts and social science critique of conservation are based.

Paper long abstract:

The separation of the social and the natural is at its most marked in conservation areas situated in poor countries, economically, politically and ontologically. On the one hand, the very rationality behind the establishment of protected areas is to shield nature from human influence, and mainstream ecology and conservationists performs this human influence as 'disturbance' of nature. On the other, social scientist critical of the negative impacts of conservation areas on people living close to them, often treat these areas as sites of lost livelihoods, and thus as denied resources. As a consequence of this duality, conservation areas are enacted materially and in writings as either pure nature or as part of social production in the form of resources.

This paper begins to explore what an alternative to these ontologies might be. Taking as its example the complex nature-cultures of St Lucia, South Africa, the paper asks what an understanding of conservation areas that transcends foundational dichotomies would entail.