Danson Kareri Mwangi

One area of research that remains understudied is how conservation is understood by communities adjoining conservation areas and the knowledge base that underlie these understandings. The proposed project seeks to understand the meaning[s] of wildlife conservation across pastoralists, farmers, group ranchers and conservationists at the borders of Chyulu Hills National Park, Kenya. I will explore the ways in which the different actors experience conservation and how this manifest in, emerges from and shapes their everyday life in the framework of colonial and post-colonial conservation paradigms, restricted access to forest resources, and everyday encounters with wildlife. I will also investigate how historical, ecological, sociocultural, and politico-economic processes interweave to shape the everyday experiences of both humans and wildlife. Among the predicaments the residents might face in their new social settings are conservation bureaucracies (often in a language and logic different from their own), and the pressures of sustaining their livelihoods. The project will rely on a qualitative inductive approach and use ethnographic methods such as participant observation, and formal and informal in-depth. This will yield important information to incorporate into management plans of the larger Tsavo Conservation Area, and to contribute to anthropology of conservation more generally.