Stakeholders and stickholders: power and paradigms in a South African development context

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	Stakeholders and stickholders: power and paradigms in a South African development context
Author:	Bologna, Sarah A.
Year:	2008
Periodical:	Anthropology Southern Africa
Volume:	31
Issue:	3-4
Pages:	123-130
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	community development community participation nature conservation national parks and reserves power
Abstract:	The alluring vision that ecotourism can drive both rural development and ecological objectives has taken deep root in postapartheid South Africa where severe economic inequalities persist as a result of dispossession and restricted access to resources during the colonial and apartheid years. However, anthropological fieldwork in and around Madikwe Game Reserve in the North West Province has revealed a less appealing story, one of marginalization and exclusion of local residents. This was despite the rhetoric of the Reserve's managing agency which claimed that Madikwe was run on 'people-based conservation' principles. The discrepancy between rhetoric and practice revealed and emphasized a power imbalance within Madikwe's development initiative and highlighted how, regardless of extreme shifts in approach to development, there was a persistent reliance on paradigmatic models that were unable to accommodate the complexities of local lived realities. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]