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Paper short abstract

This article investigates the frictions between the expansion of conservation frontiers in the Italian Alps and the emergence of localized, convivial forms of conservation from groups of mountain neo-rurals.

Paper long abstract

In this article, I investigate how different conservation narratives and practices signal alternative visions of development and life in mountain regions. First, I theorize the current growth-oriented expansion of conservation frontiers as part of the ‘neoliberalization of the mountains’, that is a political project that re-organizes human-nature relations in the mountains unevenly, in pursuit of economic growth. Alongside other capitalist changes (abandonment and touristification), I argue that growth-oriented conservation enacts and reproduces visions for Europe’s peripheries centered on wilderness and leisure, while foreclosing others. Second, drawing on ethnographic research with neo-rural communities of farmers and shepherds in the Western Italian Alps, I interpret their labour with/through nature as a form of convivial conservation (Büscher & Fletcher, 2020). I argue that this approach to conserving nature reproduces a way of living in the mountains that pursues care instead of growth, and that is mediated by labour and connection rather than leisure and separation. This analysis shows that Europe’s peripheries are far from ‘empty’ spaces that simply await for the roll out of growth-oriented conservation frontiers. On the contrary, they are political battlefields where alternative ideas for how to conserve nature can represent different struggles for how to live in Europe’s marginalized areas.