Who let the wolves out? Narratives, rumors and social representations of the wolf in Greece

Abstract

As a way of coping with uncertainty and threats to their livelihoods following wolf reintroduction, livestock breeders in Greece deploy incriminating rumors about the wolf and the premises and actors around its reintroduction. In this paper, we identify the social representations with which livestock breeders make sense of and constitute the wolf as a social object. Through Moscovici’s social representations framework, we show how enduring and contemporary (corresponding to core and peripheral) attributions formalize into coherent narratives and become designated as rumors by their unverified, third-party nature. To this end, the two rumors that dominate in Greece as well as the rest of Europe are that of wolves being secretly released by NGOs and wolves as genetically impure hybrids. These become counter-narratives to the dominant truth and function as the currency of the voiceless in wolf conservation. The paper situates these rumors in a global context of contemporary conspiracy theories on the wolf currently reproduced by disenfranchised hunters, breeders and rural residents. It suggests the affinities across these rumors point to generalizable drivers to rumor creation, including the perception of inaccessible official channels for communication.

Keywords:

• rumor
• human–wildlife conflict
• hidden transcripts
• social psychology
• wolves

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Greek Organization of Agricultural Insurance.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas. Awarded to H.P.H. and co-applicant H.N.K. for the project: Confronting challenges to political legitimacy of the natural resource management regulatory regime in Swedend the case of illegal hunting [2012-7896-23062-36].

Notes on contributors

Ilektra Theodora Theodorakea

Ilektra Theodora Theodorakea is a postgraduate student at the Division of Environmental Communication Division, currently based at the Swedish Agricultural University. She holds M.Sc. degree on Environmental Communication and Management with a special interest in human–wildlife conflicts, environmental sociology and psychology.

Erica von Essen

Erica von Essen is a Ph.D. researcher of Environmental Communication, currently based the Swedish Agricultural University. She has an avid interest in resistance to conservation, therein illegal acts of dissent and conscientious evasions from compliance with regulation. She writes on the intersections between political theory, communication and green criminology.