Trading solidarity for environmentality: subject formation and intimate government of forests in Kaolack Region, Senegal

Robinson, Ewan S.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/29655 Copy

Description

Title

Trading solidarity for environmentality: subject formation and intimate government of forests in Kaolack Region, Senegal

Author(s)

Robinson, Ewan S.

Issue Date

2012-02-06T20:09:05Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Chhatre, Ashwini

Department of Study

Geography

Discipline

Geography

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• community-based natural resource management
• development projects - long-term impacts
• decentralization
• governmentality
• subjectivities
• Senegal

Abstract

Community-based natural resource management projects widely fail to meet their stated goals. But what do such interventions and policies actually achieve? How do they alter the practices and consciousness of the people whom they involve in management? Drawing on work on environmentality, this thesis examines the legacy of a community-based natural resource management project in Kaolack Region, Senegal. Prior to the project, residents of this region subtlety and collectively refused to comply with state forest regulation, relying on widespread solidarity to avoid being caught and sanctioned by the forest service. However, this situation changed in the 1990s with the arrival of a project known as PAGERNA. As residents became implicated in forest management, some began to develop environmental subjectivities: new ideas of self-interest and commitment to environmental protection. After the close of PAGERNA, these environmental subjectivities led certain residents to collaborate with local government officials and the forest service in order to enforce new restrictions on forest use. Management after the project took the form of a regime of “intimate government,” in which communities regulated themselves, working with state authorities. However, not all rural residents adopted environmentalist values. Some complied with restrictions only because their activities were closely monitored. Others, residents of the poorest villages, continued to resist regulation. However, these resistors found that in the new regime environmentality had replaced solidarity; they were sanctioned by village guards and government foresters. The case of Kaolack reveals how subject formation shapes the long-term legacy of natural resource policies and projects. It shows how management systems are constituted by multiple subjectivities and how rural residents are controlled through multiple mechanisms of rule. The thesis argues that, rather than focusing on single outcomes, we must examine heterogeneous changes in people’s practices, identities, and relationships with institutions.

Graduation Semester

2011-12

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29655

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2011 Ewan S. Robinson

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