Presentation short abstract

Highlights the importance of attending to desire in addressing the tension between hunting and biodiversity conservation.

Presentation long abstract

This paper highlights the importance of attending to desire in addressing the tension between hunting and biodiversity conservation. While some position hunters as conservationists and passionate stewards of nature, others assert that killing animals for fun is incompatible with conservation. Here, I use a psychoanalytic political ecology approach to move beyond these arguments by focusing on hunters’ underlying desires towards the hunting process and the animals being hunted. Drawing on qualitative research with Maltese bird hunters - including those who also express their passion via bird photography and others who seek catharsis abroad through hunting tourism - I show that while some hunters claim to be fully governed by their insatiable desires, others express their desires in more disciplined ways, setting limits on how much and what they hunt, or even shifting the object of desire from hunting to birdwatching. Distinguishing between such disciplined desire and unrestrained desires that lead to greedy overhunting, I contend, opens the possibility of reconciling hunters’ desires with pursuit of conviviality, where meaningful long-lasting human-nonhuman relations are nurtured. Following Lacan, I argue that when hunters take responsibility for their desires, accept the impossibility of complete fulfillment, and learn to live with this lack, conviviality might be possible. Wholesale rejection or condemnation of hunters’ desires, on the other hand, overlooks the potential to channel their passion for birds away from destructive violence and towards coexistence.