The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

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The cultural context of biodiversity conservation
joint-ventures with Guatemalan research counterparts and were also supported by an
institutional collaboration with various local NGOs. 3
In addition to field research undertaken to deepen particular scientific understandings,
the graduate programme involved a wide range of seminars, workshops, conferences
and encounters with representatives from academic and public domains. On
these occasions, discussions comprised multi-layered issues related to environmental
protection, including theoretical, methodological and ethical implications. They involved
especially the exchange of approaches and founding principles of the concerned
disciplines. The transdisciplinary nature of communication and the many experiences
informed by the collective endeavour to find a common language have influenced
the scope of the present anthropological work and have led to insights that
underlie the way the themes as presented in the following have been approached. Although
not explicitly taken into systematic account, the communicative efforts have
enhanced my understanding of epistemological implications inherent in cross-cultural
and inter-professional ventures engaged with the production of knowledge through
research. In addition to the differences in terms of varying frames of reference, the
task to approach problems and perspectives arising from the implementation of the
CBD from distinct disciplinary perspectives was challenged by the absence of a clearly
bounded object of study. A result of insights emerging from encounters of different
›mental maps‹, the contextual design of the thesis is not only an attempt to document
and interpret systems of natural resource use as observed among indigenous communities
in Guatemala. The topical and theoretical concerns have also been configured
by institutional affiliation. Beyond the ethnographic focus on conditions of cultural
significance at the village level, the study frames a broader set of subjects and includes
shifts across multiple sites of analysis from transnational movements and national institutions
to scientific arguments in the academic discourse. Given this background,
the thesis also addresses non-anthropologists involved in research on environment
and development.
3 For a documentation of the research of this subproject investigating the problems and perspectives
of the implementation of the biodiversity convention in Guatemala, see Birner et al. (2003).