Entanglements in multispecies voluntourism: conservation and Utila's affect economy

Abstract

Through a case study of conservation voluntourism this article brings together critical political ecology, multispecies ethnography, and studies of humanitarian tourism to advance a political ecology of multispecies conservation voluntourism. The article presents multispecies conservation voluntourism as a field that produces and is produced by an “affect economy”, or an economy based on the exchange or trade in the relational. Since the mid-1990s, life on Utila, Honduras, a popular discount backpacker scuba destination located along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, has been deeply transformed by the growth of dive tourism, the ecological destruction it has produced, and now the conservation voluntourism industry emerging in its wake. Seventy percent of Utila is comprised of mangroves and associated wetlands, home to several endangered and endemic species. Using examples of whale shark tourism, lionfish hunts, and iguana tracking, this article shows how conservation organizations operate as affect generators, enabling the privilege of engaging in multispecies encounters. Engaging in multispecies conservation voluntourism produces value in the form of cultural capital which is then exchanged for material outcomes by volunteers in the global economy; at the same time, this form of voluntourism obscures local relationships to nature and alters multispecies assemblages from past configurations.

Keywords:

• Volunteer tourism
• affect
• multispecies
• Honduras
• protected areas

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the many volunteers and staff from Utila’s conservation organizations who shared their time and perspectives with me over the years. A handful of core individuals let me into their lives on the island, whose friendship I now hold dear; I am deliberately leaving their names off to protect confidentiality. Four colleagues helped me tremendously in thinking through various aspects of this article, each having provided comments on earlier drafts. Dominic Andradi-Brown enhanced my understanding of island ecological studies. Andrea Friedus helped me to think through the connections between humanitarian tourism and multispecies conservation voluntourism, both resting on a sanitized and depoliticized suffering subject. Jim Igoe aided my analysis of the relationship between conservation organizations and affect, giving me the term “affect generators” in our discussions. Melissa Johnson pushed me to better articulate the material and social transformations that have resulted from the growth of an affect economy, confronting the fact that humans on Utila have always been becoming-with, but how they assemble and how they become-with has shifted through the emergence of new affective economies. Ryan Kilfoil and Rachel Stark helped with final formatting. Three anonymous reviewers provided critical feedback that greatly enhanced the piece. Suzanne Kent and Daniel Vacanti were, and continue to be, important research partners on Utila’s conservation landscape.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributors

Keri Brondo is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Memphis. Her research interests in conservation, development, and local livelihoods, tourism, land rights, and nature-based volunteerism. Her publications include Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public, and Critical Readings (Oxford University Press, 2016), Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance (University of Arizona Press, 2013), and over 60 peer-reviewed articles, agency reports, reviews and commentaries. Her next book project, tentatively titled, Multispecies Entanglements in Honduras’ Affect Economy, explores the relationship between conservation voluntourism, protected area management, and local livelihoods.

Notes

1 Others working in this field have referred to this industry as ecological voluntourism (e.g. Waitt, Figueroa, & Nagle, 2014).

2 Many NGOs that support these activities actively push best practice codes of conduct to try to mitigate these issues. Moreover, those who support ecotourism of this form do so in place of direct harvesting of species. Thus, they rationalize that even with the stress to the species caused from tourist encounters, the species would likely have been being killed, so it is an overall biodiversity conservation gain.

3 According to this convention, the United States and Great Britain may not occupy, fortify or colonize any part of Central America.

4 Research suggests a reduction in the overall female population is connected to a food preference among consumers for gravid females (pregnant, carrying eggs). With each consumed pregnant female, there is an overall loss of 8–16 iguana. Researchers on the island are finding 56% of female iguanas to have broken tails, as compared to 35% of males with broken tails, suggesting failed capture attempts by hunters (D. F. Maryon 2018, personal communication).

5 This film was produced independently by two underwater videographers from Germany and England; the latter worked as a scuba instructor on the island for some time. See http://www.whalesharkfilm.com/eng/index_eng.html) for more details.

6 Taken from a title of an article on “GoNomad” travel website - https://www.gonomad.com/3163-utila-honduras-killing-lionfish-save-seas.

7 Opwall volunteers are not allowed to spear lionfish (only Opwall staff scientists can); dive tourists and conservation tourists who are trained through WSORC and BICA programs can participate in spearing. Opwall does not allow its volunteers to spear lionfish for several reasons, including the risk of them accidentally damaging the reef and because the UK university ethical review committees that they work with require killing procedures of a higher standard than the BICA guidelines; they must ensure a quick death for the lionfish, and often spearing does not result in immediate death, potentially leaving lionfish alive on the spear hours later (Andradi-Brown, personal communication).

8 Researchers on the island tag swampers in two ways in case they or another researcher encounters the same iguana again in the future. The least expensive method is by painting an identification number with nail polish. A slightly more expensive and invasive method is by inserting beaded safety pins with uniquely colored beads into their spines for identification purchases.

9 Similar contradictions were found among locally owned businesses that hosted large groups of conservation voluntourists in that they eliminated specific less environmentally sustainable dishes from their menu only when the conservation voluntourists were on the island.

10 This quote also appears in (Author, 2015)