H. Wels

African dreams of cohesion: elite pacting and community development in transfrontier conservation areas in southern Africa

In this paper we argue that there is a paradox in the managerial attempt of the South African Peace Park Foundation, to foster cohesion within the development of Trans Frontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) in southern Africa by focusing on community participation and development. Cohesion is mainly found at the level of the elite – both European and African – promoting the idea of the TFCAs, which provides them with opportunities to develop ‘Super‐African’ identities, based on identifying with nature and the landscape rather than the nation‐state. The imagery about the African landscape on which this process is based has its roots in colonial and primitivist discourse on Africa and Africans which includes Africans in the concept of landscape, but only if apparently unadulterated by modernity. This ultimately presents a problem for the TFCA development and its aim to develop local communities: if local people would indeed economically develop, with all the material consequences, they would no longer belong in the inclusive European aesthetics of the African landscape.In this paper we argue that there is a paradox in the managerial attempt of the South African Peace Park Foundation, to foster cohesion within the development of Trans Frontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) in southern Africa by focusing on community participation and development. Cohesion is mainly found at the level of the elite – both European and African – promoting the idea of the TFCAs, which provides them with opportunities to develop ‘Super‐African’ identities, based on identifying with nature and the landscape rather than the nation‐state. The imagery about the African landscape on which this process is based has its roots in colonial and primitivist discourse on Africa and Africans which includes Africans in the concept of landscape, but only if apparently unadulterated by modernity. This ultimately presents a problem for the TFCA development and its aim to develop local communities: if local people would indeed economically develop, with all the material consequences, they would no longer belong i...

Securing Space: Mapping and Fencing in Transfrontier Conservation in Southern Africa

This article provides a brief history of the use of maps and fences in wildlife conservation. Analysis of the promotional materials of one of the main promoters of Transfrontier Conservation Areas (TFCAs) in southern Africa, the Peace Parks Foundation, reveals the importance of mapping as a planning and promotion tool. These maps, however, appear to be quite silent about the communities that are supposed to benefit from the TFCAs. The fences around wildlife areas are resented by local communities because they prevent them from harvesting natural resources “on the other side.” Local communities also object to the fences because of their symbolic meaning and instrumentality, shown in warfare and policies “to control and divide.” Conservation organizations nowadays use the symbol of the fence to communicate their change in policy toward local communities: stressing the need to move “beyond the fences” by involving local communities in the management of protected areas and using these to promote economic development.

Conservative philanthropists, royalty and business elites in nature conservation in southern Africa

Originally published in 2010 as Volume 42, issue 3 of Antipode. The article investigates the increasingly important connections between the private sector and nature conservation agencies. It looks specifically at the connections between two important philanthropists, the late Anton Rupert, a South African business tycoon, and the late Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands. Both have been highly successful in raising funds for nature conservation, and marketing the idea of transfrontier conservation. This paper explores the networks they formed and were part of to try and explain how they were able to do so. It also attempts to analyse how their donations and fund raising have shaped thinking about nature conservation in (southern) Africa.

Waiting in liminal space: migrants' queuing for home affairs in South Africa

Waiting is a common feature of everyday encounters between individuals and organisations. Government officials and private sector workers make us wait for decisions, wait for services and sometimes, simply wait our turn. Yet, little attention has been devoted to theorising and developing the concept of ‘waiting’, and it is noticeably absent in the literature on social organisations and organisational behaviour. In this article, we seek to add texture and meaning to the experience of waiting and to explore the unique set of power relations and social processes the phenomenon may entail. More specifically, drawing on the work of Victor Turner, we describe waiting as a liminal experience, as a transitory and transformative space which lies between life stages, statuses and material contexts. We then develop the idea by scrutinising a particular form of encounter between individuals and organisations, that between the foreign migrant and the state bureaucracy in contemporary South Africa.

“Animals like us”: revisiting organizational ethnography and research

Purpose – Now that the human-animal distinction is increasingly critiqued from various disciplinary perspectives, to the point where some suggest even letting go of the distinction completely, the purpose of this paper is to argue that organizational ethnography should start to explore in more detail what this means for organizational ethnographic research, theory and analysis to include non-human animals in it. Design/methodology/approach – Revisiting the author’s earlier organizational ethnographic work in Zimbabwe on a private wildlife conservancy, an organization that was specifically set up for and around wildlife. At the same time these non-human animals were not taken into account methodologically nor featured at all in the empirical material or in the analysis. What could it mean for the analysis and conclusions if non-human animals would have been part of the equation? Findings – Since we live in a world shared between human and non-human animals, this also is true for the organizational lives. A...

Strengthening Postgraduate Supervision

An excellent collection of diverse and deeply reflective perspectives. All offer insights into the multiple challenges confronted in improving the quality and depth of postgraduate supervision, increasing throughput, and dealing with complexity. What is also affirmed is the importance of individual capability in supervision that is developed and nurtured over time, and through arduous effort. The book will be of value to novice supervisors and to more experienced ones. Policy makers, planners and administrators looking to enlarge their understanding of the postgraduate terrain in all its complexities will find the mix of theoretical and practical lenses through which the topic is approached particularly illuminating. — Professor Narend Baijnath, Chief Executive Officer, Council on Higher Education

Securing Wilderness Landscapes in South Africa

Nick Steele has been key to the large scale development of private wildlife conservation in South and southern Africa in the politically turbulent times of the 1970s and 1980s. This book contextualises this process based on the personal archives of this politically controversial conservationist.

Breaking white silences in South African-Dutch collaboration in higher education : Auto-ethnographic reflections of two “university clones”

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to show the complex positionality and the complexity that comes with the study of whiteness in South African higher education by Dutch, white academics. This complexity stems from the long-standing relationship between Dutch universities, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA) in particular, with their South African counterparts, which predominantly supported apartheid with reference to a shared religious (Protestant) background. Design/methodology/approach The paper rests upon a literature review of the development of South African higher education, and an assessment of the prominent role played by the Dutch Vrije Universiteit in support of the all-white, Afrikaans Potchefstroom University (presently North-West University). The authors, who are both involved in the institutional cooperation between Vrije Universiteit and South African universities, reflect on the complexity of this relationship by providing auto-ethnographic evidence from their own (religious) biography. Findings The paper reflects the ambiguous historical as well as contemporary contexts and ties that bind Vrije Universiteit to South African universities, especially formerly Afrikaans-speaking ones. The ambiguity is about the comfort of sharing an identity with formerly Afrikaans-speaking universities, on the one hand, and the discomfort of historical and political complicities in a (still) segregated South African society on the other hand. Originality/value This auto-ethnographic paper breathes an atmosphere of a “coming out” that is not very common in academic writing. It is a reflection and testimony of a lifelong immersion in VUA-South African academic research relations in which historical, institutional, and personal contexts intermingle and lead to a unique positionality leading to “breaking silences” around these complex relations.

Authenticity lost? The significance of cultural villages in the conservation of heritage in South Africa

ABSTRACT Based on a(n) (interrupted) period of 15 years of fieldwork, this study explores the question whether cultural villages in South Africa are to be considered an effective way to conserve a particular cultural heritage in an authentic way. In order to answer this question, three notions of authenticity are juxtaposed with three types of cultural villages. The outcomes reveal a nuanced answer that suggests that some types of cultural villages do contribute to the conservation of an authentic cultural heritage, but not all. The research also shows how cultural heritage tourism is often haunted and influenced by old colonial stereotypes and exoticism.

Juxtaposing a cultural reading of landscape with institutional boundaries: the case of the Masebe Nature Reserve, South Africa

Abstract The article explores theoretically the juxtaposition of local stories about landscape with institutional arrangements and exclusionary practices around a conservation area in South Africa. The Masebe Nature Reserve is used as a case study. The article argues that the institutional arrangements in which the nature reserve is currently positioned are too static, and consequently exclusionary, in their demarcation of boundaries. This stifles local communities’ sense of belonging to these landscapes. Hence, they strongly resent and feel alienated by the nature reserve. Their opposition and alienation often manifests in poaching. The empirical material is based on how local people living adjacent to the Masebe Nature Reserve have historically named and interpreted the area’s impressive sandstone mountains, in the process creating a sense of belonging. Juxtaposing this mostly tranquil cultural reading of the landscape to the institutional practices of boundary demarcation gives the analysis an immediate critical edge regarding issues of social justice