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STEPS Seminar: Bram Büscher on Transforming the Frontier: Peace Parks and the Politics of Neoliberal Conservation in Southern Africa

16th October 2013 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Free

STEPS Seminar – Bram Büscher on transboundary peace parks in Southern Africa, October 2013 by Stepscentre on Mixcloud

Bram Büscher talks about the themes covered in his recently published book, Transforming the Frontier: Peace Parks and the Politics of Neoliberal Conservation in Southern Africa (Duke University Press). All welcome.

You can watch a video of Bram introducing his book on his website.

About Bram:
Associate Professor of Environment and Sustainable Development at the Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University. I also hold appointments as a visiting Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies of the University of Johannesburg and a Research Associate at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology of Stellenbosch University

About the book:
International peace parks—transnational conservation areas established and managed by two or more countries—have become a popular ways of protecting biodiversity while promoting international cooperation and regional development. In Transforming the Frontier, Bram Büscher shows how cross-border conservation neatly reflects the neoliberal political economy in which it developed.

Drawing on extensive research in Southern Africa with the Maloti-Drakensberg Transfrontier Conservation and Development Project, Büscher explains how the successful promotion of transfrontier conservation as a “win-win” solution happens not only in spite of troubling contradictions and problems, but indeed because of them. This is what he refers to as the “politics of neoliberal conservation,” which receives its strength from effectively combining strategies of consensus, anti-politics, and marketing. Drawing on long-term, multi-level ethnographic research, Büscher argues that transfrontier conservation projects are not as concerned with on-the-ground development as they are purported to be. Instead, they are reframing environmental protection and sustainable development to fit an increasingly contradictory world order.

 

Details

Date:
16th October 2013
Time:
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Cost:
Free
Event Categories:
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Event Tags:
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Venue

Room 221
Institute of Development Studies
Brighton, BN1 9RE United Kingdom
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Organiser

Harret Dudley
Phone
+44 (0)1273 915673
Email
h.dudley@ids.ac.uk
View Organiser Website