Conservation labour geographies: Subsuming regional labour into private conservation spaces in South Africa
Lerato Thakholi
Abstract
Critical scholars have started analysing conservation as a ‘mode of production’, which entails conservation’s inclination to transform the value of nature into capital. This mode of production is underpinned by labour relations that have thus far escaped systematic analysis. To fill this gap, I use Smiths’ reading of the capitalist production of space to develop the concept of conservation labour geographies which untangles the spatial outcomes of the dialectical relation between the production of conservation space and labour. The concept is concretized through an analysis of the historical development of the private wildlife economy in the Lowveld area of South Africa. Through this case study I argue that private nature reserves subsume communal and state properties -beyond its fence- into exploitative symbiotic conservation labour geographies. I do this by firstly demonstrating that conservation labour geographies are an outcome of the historical production of conservation space because the development of the private wildlife economy in the Lowveld reinforced geographical differentiation by reproducing a spatialized and racialised division of labour. Secondly, I show that these labour geographies are characterised by the unpaid reproductive work of spouses and in-laws, traumatised rangers, and a racially segregated landscapes within the reserve and between the reserves and the former Bantustans. Finally, I conclude by proposing ‘conservation labour geographies’ as an analytical tool to unpack the interrelations between labour and the production of conservation spaces.