Dissertation Research: Race-ing Nature and Erasing Space: Conservation, Colonialism, and Tanzania.

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary This project will investigate the role of race and ethnicity in conservation, park establishment, and tourism in Tanzania. The space of the park in colonial Tanzania originated in delineation and control. Science brought race and nature into conversation through the establishment of racial and natural hierarchies and conservation's vilification of native African land use practices. Cartographic techniques and the tools of colonial governance helped demarcate the park as a physical manifestation of these assumptions. The park was not only a statement about the conservation of nature but an attempt to exclude and relegate native Africans to a position of inferiority in Tanzania. Through conservation and colonialism, the park came to symbolize racial and ethnic difference; space was 'racialized.' Drawing on a diverse literature this study examines the relationship among race, ethnicity, and conservation in colonial and contemporary Tanzania. The project will examine the impact of colonial legislation on parks, natives' land use, and the movement of natives; conservation policies and practices; and the experiences and assumptions of tourists and local people living near parks. The project will employ archival research and discourse analysis, participant observation and interviews with government officials and non-governmental employees. Intellectual Merits Cross-disciplinary thinking will inform the project's historical and scientific underpinnings. Because little research speaks specifically to the 'racialization' of space, this project builds on investigations in the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of race and ethnicity, and environmental sociology. The project's primary goal further aims to incorporate the lessons of philosophy into contemporary conservation policy in Tanzania. This multi-disciplinary approach extends to the project's methodology, which combines historical and ethnographic methods. With training and experience in participant observation and archival analysis, the researcher is well-prepared to do this study. Broader Impacts As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant, this project automatically pairs the goals of research and understanding with the promotion of academic learning. While in Tanzania the researcher will work closely with local advisors and researchers, particularly at the University of Dar Es Salaam, in order to promote collaborative learning and establish a cross-Atlantic research network. This study will also generate publications in English and Kiswahili that will be disseminated in the U.S. and Tanzania. Finally, by historicizing conservation in Tanzania and attempting to incorporate race and ethnicity into its definition, the project , including studies of urban ghettos, colonial cartography, and indigenous peoples, model for potential policy change in East Africa.