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Accepted Paper:
‘If there were more sacred spaces, we would not need nature reserves’ : conservation and sacrality in the Saloum Delta (Senegal)
Mathilde Gouin-Bonenfant
(University of Cambridge)
Based on 12 months of fieldwork in the Saloum Delta (Senegal), this paper will examine the claim that sacred spaces act as a form of biodiversity conservation and that NGOs should therefore include 'traditional knowledge' into their environmental projects.
Paper Abstract:
Based on 12 months of fieldwork in the Saloum Delta (Senegal), this paper will examine the claim that sacred spaces act as a form of biodiversity conservation and that NGOs should therefore include 'traditional knowledge' into their environmental projects. I will make a few claims regarding the methodological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions of such inclusion. I will argue that the study of 'traditional knowledge inclusion' would benefit from an ethnographic approach and a focus on 'practice.' With this in mind, I will consider the implications of 'NGO talk' and NGO's practices of data collection on their possibility of documenting 'traditional knowledge.' I will argue against a strict division between 'modern' and 'traditional' environmental knowledge, while recognising both the ways in which they are put in hierarchical relation and their inscription in competing ethics of care. This will lead me to question the compatibility of 'conservation' and 'sacrality' in the Saloum Delta, in terms of the environmental projects that are enacted through them.