Modern predators : the science, sovereignty, and sentiment of wildlife conservation in Zambia.
Date
2014-03-03
Authors
Godfrey, Elizabeth
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Abstract
This dissertation presents the suspicions and tensions encountered during ethnographic
fieldwork with (what I call) the Predator Project Zambezi (PPZ), a WWF-funded
research and conservation organization based in Zambia. It extrapolates the broader
contexts of this uneasiness and situates it within global conservation discourses. The
distrust that manifests between the wildlife authorities in Zambia, the residents of rural
areas, and PPZ epitomizes postcolonial contentions over state sovereignty and the
continued hegemony of Euro-American environmental ideologies. Moreover, the
objective perspective that is claimed by PPZ as a scientific organization is challenged
through analysis of its daily epistemic contradictions. In this ethnography, I show how
the priorities of conservation institutions as communicated through PPZ ultimately work
to arrest the post-colonies in a continuous state of catching up to the eco-modern
condition that is ascribed to the global North.