Presentation short abstract

This paper probes pervasive masculinities present in women’s “empowerment” programs in biodiversity conservation in southern Africa. Based on field data, it aims to elevate the voices of women participants, and considers how these programs reify, rather than dismantle traditional gender norms.

Presentation long abstract

The practice of biodiversity conservation in Africa is deeply rooted in the colonial era, and its incumbent masculinities often render conservation practitioners as martial figures mastering a supposedly untamed, frontier landscape. Amidst this backdrop, several biodiversity conservation initiatives in southern Africa have seemingly countered this tendency by prioritizing hiring women (sometimes exclusively) in previously male dominated fields related to conservation management, including in all-female anti-poaching units, wildlife rangers, or safari guide teams. These initiatives are heralded as innovative win-wins in biodiversity conservation and women’s empowerment. However, the programs, while ostensibly aimed at transforming conservation, largely retain male leadership, and reenact the gendered practices commonplace in conventional masculinist conservation, especially related to militarized or securitized wildlife management approaches. Participants may be women, but they are expected to adhere to patriarchal assumptions about how to 'protect' nature, and who may be regarded conservation actors. Moreover, the discursive rationales for creating women-prioritized conservation programs rely on longstanding tropes regarding African women and men that reinscribe gender essentialisms. Despite emancipatory claims, they reproduce norms, practices, and registers of white, and often colonial, masculinities long present in the management of African landscapes and ecosystems. Using data collected from extensive field research in Botswana and Zimbabwe, including interviews and participant observation, discourse analysis, and the lens of feminist political ecology, this paper seeks to elevate the voices of women participants themselves, as well as probe the paradox of pervasive masculinity in women’s “empowerment” programs in conservation.