The Politics of Nature and Science in Southern Africa

Description

This book brings together recent and ongoing empirical studies to examine two relational kinds of politics, namely, the politics of nature, i.e. how nature conservation projects are sites on which power relations play out, and the politics of the scientific study of nature. These are discussed in their historical and present contexts, and at specific sites on which particular human-environment relations are forged or contested. This spatio-temporal juxtaposition is lacking in current research on political ecology while the politics of science appears marginal to critical scholarship on social nature. Specifically, the book examines power relations in nature-related activities, demonstrates conditions under which nature and science are politicised, and also accounts for political interests and struggles over nature in its various forms. The ecological, socio-political and economic dimensions of nature cannot be ignored when dealing with present-day environmental issues. Nature conservation regulations are concerned with the management of flora and fauna as much as with humans. Various chapters in the book pay attention to the ways in which nature, science and politics are interrelated and also co-constitutive of each other. They highlight that power relations are naturalised through science and science-related institutions and projects such as museums, botanical gardens, wetlands, parks and nature reserves.

Informations

• Publié par: Basler Afrika Bibliographien
• Date de parution: 12 août 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9783905758870
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 13 Mo

Extrait

THE POLITICS OF NATURE AND SCIENCE
IN SOUTHERN AFRICAThe Politics of Nature
and Science in
Southern Africa
EDITORS
Maano Ramutsindela
Giorgio Miescher
Melanie Boehi
BASLER AFRIKA
BIBLIOGRAPHIENACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The idea for this edited volume came out of the graduate workshop on ‘The Politics
of Nature and Science in African History’ that took place at the University of Basel on
15–16 April 2014. Most of the chapters in this volume emerged out of papers presented
there. Patrick Harries, who sadly passed away as we were finalising this volume, inspired and
supervised research on the history of science, some of which is presented in chapters by his
graduate students in this volume. His guidance was highly appreciated and acknowledged.
We thank the Basel Graduate School of History, Basler Afrika Bibliographien, Centre for
African Studies Basel, Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft Basel and Swiss South African
Joint Research Programme for generously funding the workshop, follow-up meetings of the
editors and the publication of this book. The editors and authors are extremely thankful to
the reviewers for their willingness to review chapters, and for their useful comments which
helped to improve the quality of this volume. We wish to record our sincere gratitude to our
commissioning editors, Petra Kerckhoff and Sarah Schwarz, and to Jo-Anne Friedlander and
Nina Maister for the layout, proofreading and indexing of the volume.
© 2016 Authors and photographers
© 2016 Basler Afrika Bibliographien
Namibia Resource Centre & Southern Africa Library
Klosterberg 23
P O Box 2064
4001 Basel
Switzerland
www.baslerafrika.ch
All rights reserved
Design and typesetting by User Friendly Cape Town
COVER: Veterinary Cordon Fence, also known as Red Line, at the edge of the Namib
desert. This fence traverses the whole country from west to east and – not only physically –
continues to separate northern and central Namibia (Photographer: G. Miescher, 1993).
ISBN 978-3-905758-77-1Contents
Part I – Reflections on the Politics of Nature and Science
1 Introductory notes on the politics of nature and science 9
Maano Ramutsindela, Giorgio Miescher, Melanie Boehi
and Tanja Hammel
2 Political dynamics of human-environment relations 20
Maano Ramutsindela
Part II – Institutionalised Scientific Power
3 Racial difference in Mary Elizabeth Barber’s knowledge on insects 39
Tanja Hammel
4 Hamburg’s Botanical Museum and German colonialism: nature
in the hands of science, commerce and political power 59
Gabriele Kranz
5 Circulating nature: from north-eastern Namibia to South Africa
and back, 1960–1990 87
Luregn Lenggenhager
6 Rehabilitating the ‘Ovambo cattle’: veterinary science and
cattle breeding in early colonial Namibia 106
Giorgio Miescher and Anna Voegeli
Part III – Plants and Power
7 Medicinal plants in South Africa 127
Diana Gibson
8 “Flowers are South Africa’s silent ambassadors”: flower shows
and botanical diplomacy in South Africa 149
Melanie BoehiPart IV – Impoverished Environmentalism
9 The comprehensive hunting ban: strengthening the state through
participatory conservation in contemporary Botswana 179
Annette LaRocco
10 Land relations and property rights in central-north Namibia’s
communal areas 208
Romie Vonkie Nghitevelekwa
11 Local community disempowerment at the (trans)frontier
Ndidzulafhi Innocent Sinthumule 231
12 On identities, ways of knowing and interactions across difference
in collaborative urban nature conservation at Macassar dunes,
Cape Town 252
Marnie Graham
13 Fragile ground, contested soil: dynamics of tenure and policy in
the Bamenda wetlands 281
Sandro Simon
Part V – Interventions
14 Hidden struggles in conservation: people’s resistance in
Southern Africa 311
Frank Matose
15 ‘Before we start’: science and power in the constitution of Africa 323
Elísio Macamo
List of Contributors 335
Index 337PART I
Reflections on the Politics of Nature
and ScienceCHAPTER 1
Introductory notes on the politics
of nature and science
Maano Ramutsindela, Giorgio Miescher,
Melanie Boehi and Tanja Hammel
Introduction
A number of phrases have developed around the term ‘politics’. We hear of the
‘politics of the belly’, ‘politics of knowledge’, ‘politics of gender’, ‘politics of love’,
and so on. A common ground for these phrases is not clear except that they all
refer to the term ‘politics’. This lack of common meaning is to be expected since
the question of what politics is has been a subject of extensive debates among
social scientists. Moreover, debates about the definition of politics are themselves
political in that they are informed by particular conceptions of politics. Yet they
provide an avenue through which we can deepen our understanding of politics
in nature and in science. Notions of politics have long been used in analyses of
environmental matters and scientific knowledge production. Journals such as
Environmental Politics serve as a forum for scholarship that explores the interface
between the goals of nature conservation and a radical reordering of political and
1social preferences. Such an interface is more pertinent now in light of talks of
environmental crises in the age of the Anthropocene.
This book brings together original work written mostly by young scholars at
the beginning of their careers. Our goal is to explore from a variety of vantage
points how politics is enacted in nature conservation and preservation in Southern
Africa, as well as how such enactments are enabled by the scientific study of nature
in historical and current contexts. This spatio-temporal juxtaposition is lacking in
contemporary research on political ecology while the politics of science deserves
1 Environmental Politics 2015: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show
=aimsScope&journalCode=fenp20#.Vp8y_rX8KUk (accessed 20 January 2016)
9The Politics of Nature and Science in Southern Africa
more attention in critical scholarship on society and nature. In South Africa, critical
scholarship became prominent in the 1990s when attention was drawn to the role
of race and the relationship between power and knowledge across the disciplines.
2This scholarship has particularly focused on twentieth-century South Africa. The
3histories of science in Southern Africa however remain sparse.
The book tries to fill these gaps with the hope of attracting more research into
forms of politics that guide or result from the study of nature. We aim to contribute
to the field of critical history of science studies in and on Southern Africa by focusing
on the science of nature that shapes ideas of nature as well as policies and practices
of nature conservation, preservation and science. Our premise is that nature,
science and politics are interrelated and also co-constitutive of one another. The of nature is loaded with power that permeates scientific inquiry, research
agendas, and practices on the ground. There is therefore a need to understand how
such power is constituted and the kinds of relations it creates in time and space. We
try to understand all these by first examining the politics of nature before we tease
out its manifestation in science. This separation of nature and science is meant to
clarify our conception of politics in this book rather than to assume that the two
are completely distinct subject matters.
Politics and nature
Any discussion on the politics of nature and science has to appreciate that there is
no universal agreement on what politics as an activity is. It is, however, imperative
to clarify meanings of politics so as to arrive at an operational definition, and for
clarity of thought and intelligible analysis. There are at least two broad approaches
to politics that not only dominate the debate on what politics is but that also
profoundly influence conceptions and the theorisation of politics. The first is the
arena or site approach, which “holds that politics is an activity found only in certain
kinds of societies (normally those with states) and in certain kinds of institutional
4sites or processes within those societies”. This approach predominantly focuses
on the state and institutions, because it is premised on the view that “only
5governments define goals, policies and binding decisions”. Thus, it conceptualises
politics as a formal activity. The second approach focuses on the process and “holds
that politics is a much more generalised and universal process which has existed
whenever the human species has been found … and hence is a characteristic and
2 Jansen 1991; Dubow 2000; Harries 2007
3 See, for example, the special issue of Kronos on the ‘micro-politics of knowledge’ edited by
Jacobs/Bank 2015
4 Leftwich 2004: p. 2
5 Leftwich 2004: p. 13; see also Forsyth 2015
10Introductory notes
6necessary feature, if not function, of all societies, past and present”. In the process