Alexiou Paula, Brekl Julia, Köhler Emilie, van Engelen Wisse
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Department of Technology, Policy and Society, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands.
Anthropol South Afr. 2024 Aug 8;47(2):254-267. doi: 10.1080/23323256.2024.2314786. eCollection 2024.
Multispecies studies are known for tackling human exceptionalism. Whilst the field has seen a remarkable increase in popularity amongst scholars in the humanities and social sciences, critiques argue that it neglects inequalities and consequential differences amongst humans and between humans and other-than-humans. These critiques are especially relevant in the context of Southern Africa, where extreme inequalities amongst humans persist whilst wildlife is often perceived to enjoy a favoured position in the region's prominent conservation industries. As four researchers working in a multispecies study project focusing on the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area in Southern Africa, we pose the question of what a politicised multispecies studies might look like. In this article, we share our thoughts and reflections on working in this complex political landscape. Using insights from our own fields, we share some of the persistent concerns encountered during fieldwork and discuss and contextualise these by drawing on multispecies literature that deals with similar concerns. We identify three salient themes that should inform and politicise multispecies work in postcolonial conservation landscapes: historical legacies, reflexive positionalities and marginalised subjects.
多物种研究以解决人类例外论而闻名。虽然该领域在人文和社会科学领域的学者中越来越受欢迎，但批评者认为，它忽视了人类之间以及人类与非人类之间的不平等和相应差异。这些批评在南部非洲的背景下尤为相关，那里人类之间的极端不平等依然存在，而野生动物在该地区重要的保护产业中往往被视为享有优待地位。作为在一个专注于南部非洲卡万戈-赞比西跨界保护区的多物种研究项目中工作的四位研究人员，我们提出了一个政治化的多物种研究可能是什么样子的问题。在本文中，我们分享了在这一复杂政治环境中工作的想法和思考。我们利用自己领域的见解，分享了实地考察中遇到的一些持续存在的问题，并通过借鉴处理类似问题的多物种文献来讨论这些问题并将其置于具体情境中。我们确定了三个突出主题，这些主题应该为后殖民保护景观中的多物种工作提供信息并使其政治化：历史遗留问题、反思性立场和边缘化主体。
