Borders and border people in the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier

ABSTRACT

In southern Africa, transfrontier conservation areas (hereafter TFCAs) are founded on the principle of reshaping borders for conservation-related objectives. Proponents of TFCAs perceive borders as a legacy of colonialism and as fragmenting habitats. It could be argued that this reasoning renders borders irrational and irrelevant. The aim of this study is to investigate how redesigning of border landscapes to establish TFCAs affects border people. The paper argues that while such newly-created transnational spaces prioritise biodiversity conservation and privilege/promote commercial stakeholders and enterprises, they overlook and indeed impose costs on border people. Thus, the creation of TFCAs is not for locals as claimed by its proponents, but is rather a landscape devoted to nature conservation and commercial enterprises. To advance this argument, the study uses the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area (GMTFCA) on the Botswana-South Africa–Zimbabwe borderlands as the case study.

KEYWORDS:

• Borders
• border people
• transfrontier conservation areas
• tourists
• Mapungubwe

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge all the respondents in Mapungubwe who participated in this study between 2011 and 2019. This work is based on the research supported in part by the National Research Foundation of South Africa Unique Grant Number 99306, for which I am thankful.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa under Unique Grant Number 99306;South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement [99306].