Speaking for the trees: a study of the relationship between discourse, power and organisational culture in competing constructions of nature

ABSTRACT

In order to demonstrate the effects of competing constructions of nature by different interest groups, this article describes a dispute in Cape Town, South Africa, through the lens of cultural theory and Foucault’s notion of discourse linked to power. Controversy arose over the felling of a small plantation of non-indigenous pine trees, situated amidst indigenous “fynbos” vegetation in a suburban park. The matter was adjudicated in the Western Cape Division of the South African High Court, and subsequently in the Supreme Court of Appeal. The case turned on the meaning of public power and the affected community’s right to be heard. During argumentation the scientifically framed and institutionally supported discourse of the conservation entity was pitched against the symbolically oriented discourse of a community action group representing ramblers, joggers, horse riders, and dog walkers. The analysis focuses on how opposing arguments were shaped by perspectives of what nature, in the context of a suburban park, should look like and the purpose it should serve. The study shows how the dominant discourse of nature, rooted in the assumed supremacy of science and expert knowledge, was challenged by a multivalent and contextually moulded discourse of nature as amenity.

KEYWORDS:

• Nature
• discourse
• cultural theory
• power

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) under Grant no. SFH150728131847. Opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at, are those of the authors and are not necessarily to be attributed to the NRF. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the first draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. An old Dutch word meaning fine bush, “fynbos” refers to one of two biomes comprising the Cape Floral Kingdom which is the smallest and richest of the six Floral Kingdoms in the world, and the only one contained in its entirety within a single country (Low and Rebelo 1996).

2. PAJA is a frequently cited statute in environmental matters that come before the courts in South Africa (Kidd 2011; Retief et al. 2020). This is because the realisation of citizens’ right to “have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations” in section 24 of the Constitution is often grounded in the proper performance of regulatory (or administrative) functions by government (King and Reddell 2015). A relationship therefore exists between the protection of this right and administrative decisions (Kotze 2004). PAJA is concerned with three key legitimating principles for just administrative decisions, namely: lawfulness, procedural fairness (including the right to be heard) and reasonableness (Kidd, Retief, and Alberts 2018).

3. Stated in section 3(2) of PAJA as “a reasonable right to make representations.”

4. Offering an historical perspective of how meaning has been attributed to indigenous flora in the Cape (ca. 1890–1939), Van Sittert (2003) refers to the “botanists’ re-imagining of the indigenous flora as the ‘Cape Floral Kingdom’, an ancient and endangered flora without equal anywhere in the world,” highlighting how this narrative served both ideological and practical purposes.

5. The Judge’s interpretation is reminiscent of the famous quote by South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela: “To us on Robben Island, Table Mountain was a beacon of hope. It represented the mainland to which we knew we would one day return” (Donaldson et al. 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation South Africa.

Notes on contributors

Kirsten Day

Kirsten Day is a PhD candidate at the University of Cape Town, conducting research into competing constructions of risk in the context of environmental management. Her research draws on her work as an Environmental Impact Assessment Practitioner in the private sector for 15 years in South Africa and the United Kingdom. She has a Masters degree in Environmental Management and a second Masters in Environmental Law.

Zarina Patel

Zarina Patel is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences at the University of Cape Town. She has a PhD in Geography from Cambridge University and is the author of numerous publications concerned with sustainable urban transitions and urban knowledge. Her current research focuses on the politics and processes of navigating local policy responses to global sustainability agendas. The debates within geography and the wider social sciences that she engages and contributes to include environmental governance and decision making; environmental justice; and transdisciplinarity.