'Tides of Change': The Political Ecology of Belonging and Conservation on Lord Howe Island
This thesis examines the political ecology of belonging and conservation on Lord Howe Island, Australia. Lord Howe Island is a place of outstanding natural beauty, immense terrestrial and marine biodiversity, rare endemic species and, as a result, intensive scientific and environmental conservation attention. First discovered by humans in 1788, Lord Howe is also home to a community of about four-hundred residents who claim various forms of belonging to the Island – claims which are arranged primarily through ideas of intergenerational kinship.For some Islanders, these links span back 183 years. This thesis explores contestations over conservation on the Island that arise, I argue, as belonging is negotiated. This thesis combines political ecology, more-than-human anthropology, and historical ethnography perspectives to unpack what my Island interlocutors referred to as the ‘tides of change’ effecting Lord Howe Island. This thesis charts change on the Island, showing the inextricably connected histories of humans and more-than-humans in the processes of creating, conferring, and contesting belonging. Following my interlocutors’ tidal metaphors, I develop the idea of ebb and flow as a lens through which to explore the dynamism of the political, economic, human, and more-than-human relations that animate life (and death) on Lord Howe Island. This thesis pays attention the differential valuations made of human and other-than-human life on Lord Howe to consider what historical processes as well as governmental and scientific epistemologies and practices influence the political ecologies of belonging. The study’s chapters engage with questions of belonging and conservation at multiple scales. Economies and politics of touristic belonging and negotiations of different visions of care are discussed in relation to the outbreak of a plant pathogen (Chapter One). The belonging of government and bureaucratic authority is historicised as remnants of colonial power structures are revealed (Chapter Two). Ideas of kinship and relation to place are shown to be central to the development and expression of a unique sense of belonging held by those who identify as Lord Howe Islanders (Chapter Three). Eradication, then, is explored as a key lens through which to consider how killing invasive species to protect species labelled ‘endemic’ and ‘native’ might uproot human belonging also (Chapter Four). In paying attention to what I show are entwined histories and notions of human and more-than-human belonging on Lord Howe Island, this thesis develops a central argument – that environmental conservation programmes planned on Lord Howe Island need to be attentive to the politics of authority, knowledge and belonging that this thesis unpacks. This thesis argues that such an approach is essential for the development of conservation approaches that are environmentally successful, and equipped to ethically navigate the social worlds in which they operate.
Belonging, Lord Howe Island, More-than-human, Conservation, Political Ecology, Bureaucracy
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations