Contested Rights of Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples in the context of the Biocultural Turn in Environment and Development Discourses
Year: 2013
Type: report
Abstract: Environmental relations and development options of modern societies as well as antagonistic conceptualizations of 'nature' and 'culture' are reconsidered in the disputes about a global environment and development crisis since the 1970s. In this context, environment and development discourses and policies since the late 1980s increasingly refer to mutually sustaining interrelations between biological and cultural diversity, and the objective to protect both kinds of diversity is widely acknowledged in inter- and transnational conservation and development approaches. The conceptualization of interrelations between biological and cultural diversity predominantly occurred in diverse but overlapping discourses on nature conservation, sustainable development, and indigenous peoples, which together amount to a biocultural turn in environment and development discourses. This biocultural turn not only implies reconsiderations of nature-culture-relations and modern identities, but also changing perspectives on culturally diverse groups at the periphery of modern societies, which are increasingly conceived of as promising partners in biodiversity conservation. While interrelations between biological and cultural diversity, increasingly termed biocultural diversity, are predominantly conceptualized as mutually supportive and promising with regard to conservation and development objectives, these interrelations in practice frequently appear as conflicts between on the one hand local communities who derive their livelihoods and identity from their lands and resources, and on the other hand external actors and institutions who claim control over these areas invoking superior interests in nature conservation and modernization. In these asymmetric conflicts over biocultural diversity - framed in discourses which demand both the preservation of biological and cultural diversity - the chances of local communities to assert claims crucially depend on external discursive and legal frameworks. To address these asymmetric conflicts, rights-based and community centered approaches to conservation and development are increasingly propagated as alternatives to 'fortress-conservation' approaches as well as strategies of global resource management and free-market economization. The study reviews the discourses on nature conservation, development, and indigenous people - where interrelations between biological and cultural diversity have been conceptualized - and delineates a biocultural turn in environment and development discourses. Against this background, the relevance and implications of rights-based and community centred approaches for conflicts over biocultural diversity are explored. Based on a study of Karen ethnic minority groups in the Thung Yai Wildlife Sanctuary and World Heritage Site in Thailand, the paper examines challenges and chances for local communities to assert claims and rights to lands, resources, and self-determination in the context of the biocultural turn in environment and development discourses as well as heterogeneous changing legal frameworks. While human rights as individual rights are widely recognized, but may be difficult to enforce and of limited suitability in conflicts over biocultural diversity, group rights like indigenous rights are increasingly devised to protect ethnic minorities and perpetuate cultural diversity, but are often disputed on the national level and may be ambiguous regarding heterogeneous communities. In Thailand and globally, community rights provide another promising framework with regard to conflicts over biocultural diversity if claims of communities to livelihoods and self-determination are respected.
Author: Reiner Buergin
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3216827877