Browsing by Author "Terblanche, Renelle"

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    Good fences make good neighbours : a qualitative, interpretive study of human–baboon and human–human conflict on the Cape Peninsula
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-12) Terblanche, Renelle; Prozesky, Heidi Eileen; tellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Picturesque Cape Town is the epitome of an urban/nature interface but one within which chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) face slander for transgressing both the socially constructed human/animal and nature/culture divide, and/or the actual, physical borderlines associated with these divides. The difficulties associated with retaining baboons in nature, because of their ability to traverse physical boundaries, have led to human–baboon conflict. Even though research focusing on baboon biology on the Cape Peninsula is abundant, comparatively little attention has been paid to the human aspects of the conflict. By making use of a social constructionist theoretical framework, I wished to establish what attitudes and values play a defining role in different social constructions of chacma baboons, specifically those who often cross the urban/nature divide; what these different social constructions are; whether they differ among the various stakeholders that were included in this research; and whether there is a willingness amongst stakeholders to adjust to, accommodate, or at least understand “other” social constructions. The research is strongly motivated by a suggestion in the literature that human–human conflict underpins human–wildlife conflict. The main data collection method used in this research project was personal, semi-structured interviews with members of various stakeholder groups that are involved in the Cape Peninsula’s “baboon debate”, i.e. governmental institutions, nongovernmental organisations, researchers, representatives of residential associations, local residents and journalists. In order to increase the trustworthiness of my data and to gain an enhanced understanding of the complex social interactions, practices and belief systems which are embedded within human–baboon conflicts, I also analysed the discourse embedded in numerous forms of documentation that refer to the Cape Peninsula’s baboons. The findings from this research provide evidence that conflicts over beliefs and values, conflicts of interest, and conflicts over process are the prominent underlying causes of human– human conflict regarding baboons and baboon management on the Cape Peninsula. Conflicts over beliefs and values seem to underpin all types of human–human conflict regarding baboons on the Cape Peninsula, as human–baboon conflict is riddled with the Cartesian dualisms of urban (or culture) versus nature; human versus animal; biocentrism versus anthropocentrism; and rationalism versus affective social action. The opposition between the two ontologies of rationalism and affective social action, which reflect divergent ways of thinking about baboons and are central to individual’s support of certain baboon-management techniques, is especially pronounced. Moreover, the ability of the Cape Peninsula’s baboons to transgress the nature/culture, and even the human/animal, borderline not only leads to conflict between humans and baboons, but also among humans. This thesis recommends that, in order to effectively address human–human conflict over beliefs and values, as well as human–baboon conflict, the numerous stakeholders on the Cape Peninsula should identify a common significance of baboons. While I would refrain from declaring that human–human conflict is the actual source of human–baboon conflict, addressing the human dimensions of human–wildlife conflict remains an important though neglected issue.
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    Ongediertes : a critical qualitative study of farmer–black-backed jackal conflict and its management around the Square Kilometre Array core site in the Northern Cape, South Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-03) Terblanche, Renelle; Walker, Cherryl; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology & Social Anthropology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation explores farmer–jackal conflict and the most effective way to manage this relationship in the context of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope in the Karoo and the human–human conflict surrounding it locally. The erection of the SKA radio telescope has drawn international attention to South Africa’s semi-arid Karoo region because of the astronomical significance of its science agenda. To ensure the optimal functionality of the Array, the South African state has purchased farms totalling approximately 130 000ha, which have been withdrawn from sheep production and placed under conservation management. Commercial farmers neighbouring the SKA core site have voiced concerns that this is threatening their livelihoods and the local economy; a major concern is that the park will become a haven for black-backed jackals which predate on their sheep. Using critical realism and political ecology for my theoretical framework, and drawing on the literature on human–wildlife conflict and social capital, I explore farmer–jackal conflict around the SKA core site and the proposed nature reserve. My primary research findings reveal the different understandings of jackals among the actors involved in jackal management, as well as the significance of the characterisation of jackals as ongediertes (literally, non-animals) in popular culture. I also show how power relations around knowledge production in jackal management are exercised, in particular the dominance of scientific knowledge over local knowledge, and consider the role of jackal management in collective action. My research methodology was qualitative, including semi-structured interviews with a variety of individual actors as well as extensive participant observation over a period of four years and documentary analysis, including on the history of sheep farming and conservation in the Karoo. My findings show that farmers’ perceptions of themselves as losing their autonomy and struggling to control jackal predation have been exacerbated by the arrival of the SKA; their struggles against the SKA and the jackal have thus become fused in complex ways, lending support to the idea of the jackal as a trope for the larger developments around the SKA. In this unequal relationship, the farmers find themselves dictated to not only by the professional scientific elites involved in jackal ecology but also by those involved in the yet more powerful science of radio astronomy. Both jackals and the SKA contravene farmers’ understanding of the ‘natural’ order in the Karoo, in which man controls nature (i.e. non-humans) to serve his needs, and undermine their former dominance. Farmers in the Kareeberg are struggling to re-assert their authority; in this context jackals are the one thing in their immediate environment which they feel they still have agency over and, as a result, the jackal has become the focus of farmers’ frustrations. This dissertation concludes that effective management of human–jackal conflict around the SKA core site (and thereby of the human–human conflict to which it is linked) requires an investment in building interpersonal and institutional trust as well as drawing on the resources of both scientific and local knowledge.