Commoditizing the safari and making space for conflict: Place, identity and parks in East Africa

Increased resource scarcity, the social construction of nature, the disintegration of moral economy and associated policy shifts are often cited as the main drivers of resource conflicts in East Africa. Research in geography, anthropology and rural sociology has unveiled how common explanations of resource conflicts overlook multi-scalar political, economic, social, cultural and environmental tensions. The purpose of this study is to provide more nuanced explanations of resource conflicts by incorporating three disparate but related threads of literature. Using literatures on the commodification of nature, multi-stranded notions of identity and geographical conceptualizations of ‘place’, I demonstrate how three transformational moments structure and propagate conflicts between herders and protected area managers around a national park in Kenya. I argue that the rise of a commoditized form of nature tourism coupled with idealized notions of ‘nature’ and ‘wilderness’ have altered the micro-geography of interaction between herders and protected area managers. These altered geographies of interaction have diluted the shared history and traditional relations of reciprocity, created new social milieux, and lead to the creation of binary identities among herders and protected area managers. The enforcement of these binary identities culminates in conflict.

► I investigate the drivers of conservation conflicts between protected area managers and local pastoralists in Kenya.
► I rely on literature on the commodification of nature, place and identity to guide an investigation of resource conflicts.
► Conflicts stem from the changing micro-geography of interactions between protected area managers and pastoralists.
► These changing geographies are attributed to a commoditized form of nature tourism, which leads to binary identities.
► Enforcement of binary identities culminates in conflict.