Property and Difference in Nature Conservation

Abstract

Social science research on nature conservation ascribes enclosures and the consequent evictions and dispossession of local people to unequal power relations. It reveals that the monopoly of power by the state configures new relations between local people and their natural resources, and legitimizes land grabbing. In this paper we build on this literature by engaging two questions. The first question relates to how land tenure regimes enable green grabbing and also configure the participation of local people in nature conservation enterprises. Knowing how land tenure regimes structure the involvement of local people in nature conservation is a necessary step toward an inquiry into the relationship between local people and protected areas. In the second question we ask how historical land tenure allocations enable current configurations of power relations in conservation areas. We use the case study of Mapungubwe on the Botswana‐South Africa‐Zimbabwe borderlands to demonstrate that historical land tenure allocations facilitate land alienation and the marginalization of local people in s.

Key words:

• Property
• Mapungubwe
• transfrontier conservation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maano Ramutsindela

Dr. Maano Ramutsindela is a professor of environmental and geographical science at the University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; [[email protected]].

Innocent Sinthumule

Dr. Innocent Sinthumule is a senior lecturer in the department of ecology and resource management at the University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa; [[email protected]].