DeepSummary
In this episode, host Louisa Han interviews Charis Enns about her new book 'Settler Ecologies: The Enduring Nature of Settler Colonialism in Kenya', co-authored with Brock Baszalio. The book explores how settler colonialism in Kenya has been intimately intertwined with ecological transformations, impacting biodiversity and the lives of indigenous communities.
Enns discusses how early British settlers sought to recreate their homeland by importing new plants and animals, displacing native species. After Kenyan independence, settlers turned to wildlife conservation and ecotourism to maintain economic interests, often prioritizing charismatic species over truly biodiverse landscapes. This allowed settlers to reproduce colonial power structures through the commodification of nature.
The book critiques models like animal sanctuaries and single-species conservation that can disrupt local ecologies and livelihoods. Enns calls for creating 'ecologies otherwise' that sustain both indigenous human populations and endemic biodiversity, challenging assumptions about what forms of nature are being preserved and whose interests they serve.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Settler colonialism in Kenya has been deeply intertwined with ecological transformations, enabling settlers to reproduce power structures.
- Conservation efforts like wildlife preserves and sanctuaries have often prioritized charismatic species and colonial narratives over biodiverse landscapes and local livelihoods.
- Tourism jobs in conservation areas can conscript indigenous people into performing colonial roles and imageries.
- Animal rescues and single-species focused conservation risk disrupting local ecologies while serving fundraising aims over conservation effectiveness.
- The book calls for 'ecologies otherwise' that sustain indigenous human populations alongside endemic plant and animal species.
- Conservation inevitably involves value judgments about which species to prioritize, often reflecting existing imbalances of power.
- Addressing biodiversity loss requires questioning what forms of nature are preserved and whose interests they serve.
- The enduring legacy of settler colonialism continues to shape human-environment relations in Kenya.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “The reality is we, in every landscape, there's a need to make decisions about what plants and animals are going to be prioritized. With the limit amount of financing we have.“ by Charis Enns
- “Alongside this narrative that everything that's conserved in a conservancy is good because it's doing the work of biodiversity conservation. There's often the idea that every time a job is created through a conservancy, that's good because it contributes to livelihoods and local economic development. And again, what we try to problematized through the book is that sometimes those economic opportunities, those livelihood opportunities often or can be used to reproduce certain structures of power, in this case, settler colonial power.“ by Charis Enns
- “And although there's an income and a job that comes out of filling that role, there's something that also needs to be critiqued, which is that someone has to play or perform the role of a person in the colonial past in order to get access to that livelihood opportunity. And that's really problematic.“ by Charis Enns
- “We say there's maybe something to question here. Maybe this model of conservation is actually more about its ability to fundraise, its ability to give people experiences with animals that are very effective and emotive than it is actually about being the most effective way to save highly endangered species.“ by Charis Enns
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Episode Information
New Books in Environmental Studies
Marshall Poe
4/20/24