Maria Sapignoli

Robert K. Hitchcock

This book presents a critical review of the ethics of conservation-related resettlement. We examine what has become known as the” parks versus people” debate, also known as the “new conservation debate,” which has pitted indigenous and other local people against nation states and social scientists against ecologists and conservationists for the past several decades. Aiming to promote biodiversity conservation and habitat preservation, some biologists, park planners, and conservation organizations have recommended that indigenous and other people should be removed from protected areas. Local people, for their part, have argued that residents of the areas that were turned into protected areas, national parks, game reserves and monuments had managed them in productive ways for generations and that they should have the right to remain there and to use natural resources as long as they do so sustainably. This position is often supported by indigenous rights organizations and social scientists, especially anthropologists. There are also some conservation-oriented NGOs that have policies involving a more human rights-oriented approach aimed at poverty alleviation, sustainable development, and social justice. The book discusses biodiversity conservation, indigenous peoples (those who are ethnic minorities and who are often marginalized politically), and protected areas, those categories of land set aside by nation-states that have various kinds of rules about land use and residence. The focus initially is on case studies from protected areas in the United States including Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Glacier National Park and on national monuments and historical parks where resettlement took place. We then consider issues of coercive conservation in southern Africa, including Hwange National Park (Zimbabwe), the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (Botswana), Etosha National Park, and Bwabwata National Park (Namibia), and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (South Africa and Botswana). All of these cases involved involuntary resettlement at the hands of the governments. In the book we consider some of the social impacts of conservation-forced resettlement (CfR), many of which tend to be negative. After that, we assess some of the strategies employed by indigenous peoples in their efforts to recover rights of access to protected areas and the cultural and natural resources that they contain. Examples are drawn from cases in Asia, Africa, and South America. Conclusions are provided regarding the ethics of conservation-related resettlement and some of the best practices that could be followed, particularly with regard to indigenous peoples.

The Ethics of Conservation-Related Resettlement

People, Parks, and Power

Mark Goodale

Marie-Claire Foblets

Olaf Zenker

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology is a ground-breaking collection of essays that provides an original and internationally framed conception of the historical, theoretical, and ethnographic interconnections of law and anthropology. Each of the chapters in the Handbook provides a survey of the current state of scholarly debate and an argument about the future direction of research in this dynamic and interdisciplinary field. The structure of the Handbook is animated by an overarching collective narrative about how law and anthropology have and should relate to each other as intersecting domains of inquiry that address such fundamental questions as dispute resolution, normative ordering, social organization, and legal, political, and social identity. The need for such a comprehensive project has become even more pressing as lawyers and anthropologists work together in an ever-increasing number of areas, including immigration and asylum processes, international justice forums, cultural heritage certification and monitoring, and the writing of new national constitutions, among many others. The Handbook takes critical stock of these various points of intersection in order to identify and conceptualize the most promising areas of innovation and sociolegal relevance, as well as to acknowledge the points of tension, open questions, and areas for future development.

The Oxford Handbook of Law and Anthropology

This book presents a long-term study of the activist campaign that contested the Botswana government's much-publicized removal of the San and Bakgalagadi people from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Sapignoli's multiple points of observation and analysis range from rural Botswana to the nation's High Court, and a variety of United Nations agencies in their Headquarters, focusing on rights claimants and officials from NGOs, states and the United Nations as they acted on the grievances of those who had been displaced. In offering a comprehensive discussion of the San people and their claims-making through formal institutions, this book maintains a consistent focus on the increased recourse to law and the everyday experience of those who are asserting their rights in response to the encroachments of the state and the opportunities inherent in new indigenous advocacy networks.

Displacement, Law, and Activism in the Kalahari

Hunting Justice

Ronald Niezen

This book assembles a range of work by researchers who have entered the social worlds of global organizations.

Maria Sapignoli

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