Tackling the invisibility of abeyant resistance to mainstream biodiversity conservation: Social movement theory and botanic garden agency

Abstract

For more than three decades now, botanic gardens have been re-inventing themselves as institutions of plant biodiversity conservation. In this context a growing number of botanic gardens around the world are embracing social roles in pursuit of plant conservation. This reflects the advent of a socio-environmental movement within botanic gardens comprised mainly of public engagement/education staff who promote the management of people-plant relationships as the object of conservation, and as an alternative to mainstream approaches based on the governance of objectified ‘plant-natures’. Although historically social movement theories have focused on social conflict, recent developments in this field offer analytical options that productively highlight the politics of non-conflictual struggle. These developments facilitate the analysis of novel networks and practices of biodiversity conservation at botanic gardens. Building on this literature, this article analyses an original conservation movement at botanic gardens as emergent (at elementary stages of development) and abeyant (yet to be formally organized and/or claimed), which is expanding globally—albeit within the context of the structural constraints that these institutions face as burgeoning sites of environmental innovation. The article thus widens the scope of conservation studies to include the world of botanical garden biodiversity conservation, its political engagements, and the heterogeneity of constituencies it encompasses.