Concealing protocols: conservation, Indigenous survivance, and the dilemmas of visibility

Abstract

ABSTRACT In an effort to recast themselves as proponents of human rights, transnational conservation organizations increasingly look to Indigenous communities as sources of labour, knowledge, and legitimacy. In many cases, the resulting relationships are fraught with stark power imbalances and premised on flawed understandings of Indigenous practices. As a result, even the most ‘people-centered’ conservation interventions too often serve to accelerate the enclosure, commodification, and dispossession of Indigenous lands. In this article, we reflect on our respective collaborations with Indigenous communities in Sarawak, Malaysia, and Palawan, Philippines, who have contended with biodiversity conservation projects led by transnational NGOs. We have noticed that our collaborators navigate the projects’ expectations by selectively performing, concealing, and obscuring important aspects of their lives. They do so, in part, in an effort to manage the NGOs, government agencies, and other actors vying for their cooperation. But more importantly, we argue, this is a way to defend their lands, livelihoods, and ecosystems from dispossessory pressures, including those exerted by conservation. As such, we theorize, these acts constitute a form of what Vizenor calls ‘survivance’ and raise important questions about the role of scholars and activists in rendering Indigenous lifeworlds (in)visible to conservation organizations and other institutions of neocolonial power.