Ecological primordialism: the human–environment nexus in Soqotra

Abstract

This article depicts the initial human–environmental relations that prevailed during the pre-modern period of Soqotra’s history prior to its incorporation into a state-led modernization process and its subsequent enclosure within a United Nations-designed conservation zoning plan and ecotourism economy. The term ecological primordialism is coined to highlight the primacy of the environment as the enabling and constraining context for the constitution of the Soqotran community. It entails a symbiotic relationship between an ecosystem and a human social system, which structured the contingent relations between the raw materials for livelihood making and community formation: people, resources and space. The article elucidates how Soqotrans managed this mostly constraining human–environment nexus through a series of adaptive practices: their taxonomic appropriation and practical domestication of the island’s environmental resources; their transformation of the landscape into a domain of livelihood; their organization of dispersed settlements into a socio-political unit; their demarcation of the island into geographical zones of cultural differentiation; and their establishment of mutual aid institutions that simultaneously regulated resource use while integrating all islanders into relations of social kinship. The article concludes with a cautionary tale about the use of anachronistic human–environment relations as the basis of conservation policy.