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Navigating power in conservation

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Title Navigating power in conservation
 
Creator Shackleton, R.T.
Walters, G.
Bluwstein, J.
Djoudi, H.
Fritz, L.
Lafaye de Micheaux, F.
Loloum, T.
Nguyen, V.T.H.
Rann Andriamahefazafy, M.
Sithole, S.S.
Kull, C.A.
 
Subject conservation
interdisciplinary research
 
Description Conservation research and practice are increasingly engaging with people and drawing on social sciences to improve environmental governance. In doing so, conservation engages with power in many ways, often implicitly. Conservation scientists and practitioners exercise power when dealing with species, people and the environment, and increasingly they are trying to address power relations to ensure effective conservation outcomes (guiding decision-making, understanding conflict, ensuring just policy and management outcomes). However, engagement with power in conservation is often limited or misguided. To address challenges associated with power in conservation, we introduce the four dominant approaches to analyzing power to conservation scientists and practitioners who are less familiar with social theories of power. These include actor-centered, institutional, structural, and, discursive/governmental power. To complement these more common framings of power, we also discuss further approaches, notably non-human and Indigenous perspectives. We illustrate how power operates at different scales and in different contexts, and provide six guiding principles for better consideration of power in conservation research and practice. These include: (1) considering scales and spaces in decision-making, (2) clarifying underlying values and assumptions of actions, (3) recognizing conflicts as manifestations of power dynamics, (4) analyzing who wins and loses in conservation, (5) accounting for power relations in participatory schemes, and, (6) assessing the right to intervene and the consequences of interventions. We hope that a deeper engagement with social theories of power can make conservation and environmental management more effective and just while also improving transdisciplinary research and practice.
 
Date 2023-03
2023-12-12T07:46:32Z
2023-12-12T07:46:32Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Shackleton, R. T., Walters, G., Bluwstein, J., Djoudi, H., Fritz, L., Lafaye de Micheaux, F., Loloum, T., Nguyen, V. T. H., Rann Andriamahefazafy, M., Sithole, S. S., & Kull, C. A. (2023). Navigating power in conservation. Conservation Science and Practice, 5(3), e12877. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12877
2578-4854
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/135254
https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/articles/ADjoudi2302.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12877
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Format e12877
 
Source Conservation Science and Practice