Foucault in the forest: Questioning environmentality in Amazonia

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the encounter between the Field Museum of Natural History and Amazonian Ecuador's Cofán people to question the concept of “environmentality”: the idea that environmentalist programs and movements operate as forms of governmentality in Michel Foucault's sense. I argue that, although the Field Museum's community conservation projects constitute a regulatory rationale and technique, they do not transform Cofán subjectivity according to plan. By exploring Cofán people's critical consciousness of environmentalist interventions, I aim to cast doubt on the governmentality paradigm's utility for analyzing the complexities of cultural difference, intercultural encounter, and directed change.

Constitutionality: Conditions for Crafting Local Ownership of Institution-Building Processes

“…Despite the call for participatory approaches and decentralization in sustainable development and governance in the last 15 years, there has been a growing critique of such approaches in regard to both their basic concepts (Ribot 1999;Cook and Kothari 2001;Larson and Ribot 2004;Haller 2007) and their strategic applications in such concrete contexts as co-management schemes for protected areas (Acciaioli 2008) and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), especially in Africa (Blaikie 2006;Brockington, Duffy, and Igoe 2008;2011;. These critiques argue that the participatory approach is often used as a ''Trojan horse'' (Blaikie 2006) by powerful actors, sometimes external but often local, leading to ''elite capture'' (Iversen et al 2006; see also Borrini-Feyerabend et al (2004) argue that ''sharing power'' is the key to sounder participatory management of natural resources, few studies have actually focused on how local people perceive such processes and how they influence institution building.…”

“…Specifically, he attempts to demonstrate that members participating in village forest councils in India have incorporated and internalized governmental notions of the protection of forests and have become subjects of a conservation ideology defined by the government, adopting its values. However, this framework has been criticized from a number of perspectives: Fletcher's (2010) delineation of multiple discrete environmentalities in competing approaches to conservation policy; Cepek's (2011) Marxist treatment of apparent compliance with conservation initiatives despite alienation as a result of local calculation of interests; and Singh's (2013) highlighting of affect, emotion, and embodied practices, as opposed to the techniques of governmentality, in shaping environmental subjectivity. Acciaioli (2008b) uses practice theory to present another critique of this approach, focusing on the strategic actions of individuals and interest groups on different scales in the Lore Lindu National Park in Indonesia.…”

Foucault in the Landscape: Questioning Governmentality in the Azores

“…Ethnographic literature presents a wide range of similar cases worldwide, where there is a gap between the aims and results of governmental programmes (e.g. Cepek, 2011;Ferguson, 2004;Li, 2007;Silva, 2011;Smith, 2004). Thus, there is a good reason to conclude that, frequently, governmentality is not practiced by governments in the way it is meant to be (or in line with its theoretical formulation).…”

“…2-10). Cepek (2011) focuses on the theme of subject formation to question the analytical utility of Agrawal's (2005aAgrawal's ( , 2005b theorisation of "environmentality" and, thereby, cast doubt on the utility of governmentality theory for the analysis of the complexities of cultural difference, intercultural encounter and direct change. Drawing on ethnographic materials from Amazonia, the author argues that, "although the Field Museum's community conservation projects constitute a regulatory rationale and technique, they do not transform Cofán subjectivity according to plan" (Cepek, 2011, pp.…”

What happens at the gap between knowledge and practice? Spaces of encounter and misencounter between environmental scientists and local people

“…The local inhabitants have learned that if outsiders come looking for natural resources, some inhabitants will benefit and others will lose out (Lehm et al 2002, Silva 2002. As Valentine (2008:333) writes, "encounters never take place in a space free from history, material conditions, and power" (see also Sharpe 1998, Cepek 2011. With regard to the practice of scientific research, this kind of losing out has come in the form of experiences with biopiracy and the patenting of traditional knowledge (Laird and Lisinge 2002).…”