From biopower to ontopower? violent responses to wildlife crime and the new geographies of conservation

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dc.contributor.authorBuscher, Bramen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2019-09-11T08:50:33Z
dc.date.available2019-09-11T08:50:33Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.descriptionCITATION: Buscher, B. 2018. From biopower to ontopower? violent responses to wildlife crime and the new geographies of conservation. Conservation and Society, 16(2):157-169, doi:10.4103/cs.cs_16_159.en_ZA
dc.descriptionThe original publication is available at http://www.conservationandsociety.orgen_ZA
dc.description.abstractIntensifying global dynamics of wildlife crime are rapidly reshaping conservation politics, practices and geographies. Most pronounced are the manifold violent responses to wildlife crime, including direct lethal action and increasing anticipatory action to prevent these crimes from happening in the first place. This paper reflects on these dynamics in relation to recent literature that employs Foucault's concept of biopower to understand the governance of increasingly precarious human and non-human life. Building on Brian Massumi's exposition of ontopower – an 'environmental power' that “alters the life environment's conditions of emergence” – I explore whether we are seeing a move from bio- to ontopower where the imperative is less the construction of systemic forms of governmentality to ensure life's ‘optimisation’ than on processually pre-empting incipient tendencies towards unknown but certain future threats to life. Phrased differently, ontopower focuses on how to prevent nature's destruction in the future through pre-emptive measures in the present. Drawing on empirical research on violent responses to rhino poaching in South Africa, the paper argues that we are seeing the uneven emergence of new geographies of conservation based on ontopower. It concludes by speculating whether conservation's insecurity is turning into its pre-emptive other by making (green) war necessary for non-human life's survival.en_ZA
dc.description.urihttp://www.conservationandsociety.org/article.asp?issn=0972-4923;year=2018;volume=16;issue=2;spage=157;epage=169;aulast=Buscher;type=0en_ZA
dc.description.versionPublisher's versionen_ZA
dc.format.extent13 pages : illustrations.en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationBuscher, B. 2018. From biopower to ontopower? violent responses to wildlife crime and the new geographies of conservation. Conservation and Society, 16(2):157-169, doi:10.4103/cs.cs_16_159
dc.identifier.issn0975-3133 (online)
dc.identifier.issn0972-4923 (print)
dc.identifier.otherdoi:10.4103/cs.cs_16_159
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/106443
dc.language.isoen_ZAen_ZA
dc.publisherMedknow Publicationsen_ZA
dc.rights.holderAuthors retain copyrighten_ZA
dc.subjectWildlife crimes -- Violence againsten_ZA
dc.subjectCrimes against nature (Wildlife crimes)en_ZA
dc.subjectConservation of natural resourcesen_ZA
dc.subjectRhinoceroses -- Conservationen_ZA
dc.subjectRhinoceroses -- Effect of poaching onen_ZA
dc.titleFrom biopower to ontopower? violent responses to wildlife crime and the new geographies of conservationen_ZA
dc.typeArticleen_ZA
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