Silverbacks, Black Mambas and Deadly Women: Gender Identities and Transformation in South African and Australian Biodiversity Conservation
This is a 4-year research project funded by Formas (the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development) to be carried out from 2022-2025 in South Africa and Australia in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Australian National University and Rhodes University. Ethical approval has been obtained from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (Etikprövningsmyndigheten), the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s Ethics Board as well as Rhodes University.
About the project
Biodiversity conservation in the Global South has been traditionally viewed as a white, male-dominated, colonial activity, associated with ‘silverback’ or ‘alpha male’ identities shaped by notions of adventure, big game hunting, and the exclusion of black and Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands. These gender identities persist in conservation today and influence conservation practices, including, for example, recent militarised efforts to control rhino poaching in South Africa, and technological forms of ‘weeds, fire, ferals’ management in Australia. It has been increasingly noted that such practices continue to marginalise alternative, community-based and Indigenous approaches to conservation, and may actually not work to protect biodiversity over the long-term.
Yet at the same time, conservation is changing. There are global moves to diversify, decolonise and transform conservation, with greater gender diversity and inclusion seen as essential for developing more holistic, caring and just futures for life on Earth. It is increasingly recognized that including women leads to better governance of natural resources and more effective protection of ecosystems and biodiversity, and addressing gender equality is understood as central to achieving the sustainable development goals. Gender mainstreaming programs – often supported through international development policies such as Sweden’s “feminist foreign policy” – have increased the number and prominence of women in conservation in the Global South. These shifts are evident in famous initiatives like all-women anti-poaching units (‘black mambas’) in southern Africa, Indigenous women’s ranger groups (‘deadly women’) in Australia, and the growing prominence of women’s conservation networks and leadership programs around the world.
So far, however, there has been very little research on the actual lived experiences of conservationists operating within these shifting conservation landscapes. True gender equality and diversity will not be achieved simply through the greater presence of previously excluded groups in conservation, but by changing how people relate to each other in day-to-day situations and practices. For example, emerging critical reports of women’s anti-poaching units suggest that while they do herald greater women’s participation in conservation, they also continue to reproduce potentially damaging gender stereotypes and practices. There have been increasing calls from the conservation community, including from women we have worked with in a South African pilot project, for research that explores the changing roles and identities performed by women, men and non-binary people working in conservation, and the ways in which these identities intersect with changing race, class and political identities.
This 4-year project will build on existing research at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stockholm University) to explore changing gender identities and their effects on conservation practices in South Africa and Australia. We will begin by using critical discourse analysis – a way to analyse the meanings communicated by texts – to explore the conservation gender identities portrayed in traditional and social media, and how they challenge or reproduce inequitable gender relations. We will then use photovoice – a method where research participants use photography to document their lives – to explore how conservationists adopt, challenge or transform these and other identities in their everyday work practices. Finally, we will work with our International Reference Group, consisting of 9 experts on gender, conservation and transformation, to put our results in a global context and highlight the importance of gender identities in conservation and sustainability research and practice.
Overall, the project will advance social scientific understanding of the role of gender in conservation, and more broadly how the meanings and lived experiences of conservationists shape conservation practices and their efficacy. The project will also contribute to processes of social change within the conservation sector by using a range of communication tools – including an online photography exhibit, scientific publications and popular news articles – to nurture self-awareness and reflection among conservationists. Such ‘reflexivity’ is recognised as an essential step towards more equitable gender and race relations, and to more diverse and just systems of protecting ecosystems.
Gender Identities and Transformation in Biodiversity Conservation 