Participation is not the answer: epistemic violence and authoritarian practices in conservation-forced displacement

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article provides the first in-depth analysis of the first 13 years of conservation-forced resettlement negotiations in the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. It documents four strategies used by the state to disable peoples’ voices: delegitimizing their preferences, delimiting negotiations, coercing them into consent and disengaging from participatory policy. It shows how invited spaces of induced participation amplify epistemic violence and entrench authoritarian practices. It argues that, while the normative belief in the value of participation remains largely unquestioned, participation in fact legitimizes displacements. It calls for decolonial approaches to conservation that do not rely on and cause displacement.