(Re)Interpreting corruption in local environments: Disputed definitions, contested conservation, and power plays in Northern Madagascar

Abstract

In the biodiversity hotspot of Madagascar, conservation actors increasingly point to “corruption” and “crime” to explain ongoing environmental degradation, and seek to involve local residents in “community-based” efforts to combat or circumvent these problems. In doing so, they often assume that local people share their understandings of “corruption” and “crime.” This paper problematizes such assumptions, interrogating how definitions and accusations of “corruption” are formulated and used by varied actors to contest authority, legitimacy, and resource access. Drawing on evidence from over 250 interviews with NGO staff, local authorities, and community members across northern Madagascar, we find notable divergences in conceptualizations of “corruption.” Conservation actors generally define “corruption” in conventional terms—as the abuse of public authority for private gain—but also conflate all violations of conservation rules with “corruption,” and attribute local residents’ engagement with “criminal” practices and “corrupt” exchanges to poverty and ignorance. Community members acknowledge dynamics of illicit state-commercial exploitation, but offer alternate assessments of “corruption,” as well. Beyond implicating conservation actors themselves in “corrupt” processes, they critique uneven distributions of power and resources as “corrupt.” Moreover, they characterize local transgressions of conservation rules as contestations of “corrupt” inequities and expressions of deep disagreement with associated restrictions and authority structures rather than “criminal” deviance. Our findings thus reveal how (re)interpretations of “corruption” are enrolled in broader struggles. They suggest a need to reconsider how local participation in conservation and anti-“corruption” efforts is sought and viewed, and to further grapple with persistent problematics of power haunting “community-based” conservation in places like Madagascar.