Anthropology and the Politics of Representation

9. Ethnography and the Cultural Politics of Environmentalism

9 Ethnography and the Cultural Politics of Environmentalism Tracey Heatherington During my first months of ethnographic research on the island of Sardinia, Italy, I found myself one afternoon in a restaurant in a town near the east­ ern coast as the guest of six men who had befriended another anthropologist the year before.The men were workers in their thirties and forties whose economic strategies included flexible combinations of informal and formal construction jobs, herding, bartending, and entrepreneurial tourism. None of these men possessed the university degrees and po­ liti­ cal connections that would allow them to contend for steady,salaried,government positions.Over a communal dish of fave con lardo, a traditional bean and pork recipe of­ten enjoyed at festive gatherings, they brought up the subject of my fieldwork interests in environmental management with some suspicion. One of them asked me with a sideways look, and perhaps a little aggressively , “Sei contenta che stiamo tagliando la legna?” (Are you happy that we are cutting wood?). Aware that the town had witnessed episodes of marked contestation with the Forest Ranger Corps the previous year over access to winter fuelwood quotas from the woodlands under communal management, I shrugged and said, “Si, perchè non?” (Yes, why not?). He did not answer but continued to interrogate,“Cosa vuol direWWF?” (What does WWF stand for?). Grumbles resounded at the table as I stumbled tentatively over the words, “World Wildlife Fund.” Immediately my inquisitor demanded to know,“Sei d’accordo con il parco del Gennargentu?” (Are you in favor of the Gennargentu Park?). Before I could respond,a passionate debate flared up about a plan to establish a national park. The men shouted their positions to one another in Sardinian and to me in Italian. Confused and energetic discussion continued. Nobody seemed to agree with anyone else about exactly how the town 158 / Heatherington should approach environment and development.What emerged,nonetheless, was a tacit consensus that the proposed national park would be bad for local residents because it would prevent the free continuation of hunting, woodcutting , tourism development, and pastoral herding on the commons. All these uses of the local territory were recognized as essential to their aspirations for the future. The point in demanding to know whether I agreed with their exercise of rights to take wood from their communal territory was essentially the same, for them, as asking if I agreed with the creation of a national park. These men wanted me to clarify whether or not I supported their rights to use and benefit from the local commons. If I was for these rights, for the usi­civici (rights of communal usufruct),then I could be considered to be on their side. Only on these terms, I suspected, were they prepared to accept me into their social world, whether as an ethnographer, an advocate, or a friend. By contrast, if I were seen to support the WWF or the Gennargentu National Park,then I would be persona non grata working against their interests.I had already met certain forest rangers, stationed in the town from other parts of Sardinia, who were pointedly denied some customary local hospitality precisely because they were taken to be associated with both environmentalists and the state. “Non puoi fare l’antropologa e l’ambientalista alla stessa volta!” (You cannot be an anthropologist and an environmentalist at the same time!), one of them insisted emphatically. I remember asking quite timidly, “Ma perchè?” (But why not?).This reductive dualism continued to haunt me,expressing what seemed to be a classic conflict between anthropocentric and biocentric values and perspectives.1 In retrospect, I see that this brusque warning against divided loyalties was both more astute and more intriguing than I realized at the time. Even in West­ ern Europe, the paradoxes of advocacy in environmental anthropology have turned out to be dramatic. Anthropological work on traditional environmental knowledge in tribal and peasant societies has made significant contributions to cultural recognition in many contexts.2 Yet it remains problematic for local groups to lay claim to cultural authority over landscapes and biodiversity resources without essentializing culture. For example, the guidelines of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) leave government elites to arbitrate which local communities truly embody “traditional lifestyles relevant for the conserva­ tion and sustainable use of biological diversity” (UNCED 1992). As we move toward more nuanced assessments of po­ liti­ cal ecology in a changing world, the representation of authentic or traditional orientations to environmental [18...