The Influence of Place Meanings on Conservation and Human Rights in the Arizona Sonora Borderlands

Abstract

Conservation and human rights are currently threatened by direct and indirect effects of border enforcement practices on the US–Mexico border. Increased border enforcement in urban areas has pushed migrants into remote conservation areas where thousands have died. Migration, smuggling, border enforcement, and aid provisioning contribute to ecological degradation of protected areas on the border. In this study we explore the discursively created physical, social, and cultural dimensions of place among land management personnel and humanitarian aid volunteers who were attempting to address the socio-ecological crises wrought by border enforcement in the Altar Valley region of southern Arizona. Land managers described physical place as an eroding ecosystem whereas humanitarians described physical place as a fragmenting system. Land managers saw crime as the defining social process while humanitarians pointed to social injustice. Finally, land managers viewed uncertainty as the primary cultural meaning, but humanitarians described empathy as the primary cultural meaning. We describe how these differences explain counterproductive conflict between humanitarian and land management groups, how viable local conservation solutions can emerge from an understanding of place, and how challenges arise as these solutions are scaled up to regional and national level policy. We suggest that the concept of culturescape integrated with place allows for an analysis of discourse that is especially local, and can be used to understand and improve upon natural resource conflicts that stem from attachments to place.