The cultural context of biodiversity conservation - Oapen

The discursive context
frame that gives context to the contemporary study of peoples or sets of subjects observed
by the ethnographer. It, rather, becomes integral to and embedded in discontinuous
multi-sited objects of study (Marcus 1995: 95ff.). This implies that
any ethnography of a cultural formation in the world system is also an ethnography of the system, and
therefore cannot be understood only in terms of the conventional single-site mise-en-scene of ethnographic
research [...]. For ethnography, then, there is no global in the local-global contrast now so frequently
evoked (1995: 99).
Admitting the influence of ideas and concepts of so called post-modernism, Marcus
asserts that the mode of multi-sited ethnography is a response to empirical changes in
the world and therefore to transformed locations of cultural production; empirically
following the thread of cultural process itself implies a shift towards multi-sited ethnography.
In this course, accounts of cultures have to be composed in »a landscape
for which there is yet no developed theoretical conception or descriptive model«
(1995: 102). Multi-sited ethnography is intellectually constructed in terms of the specific
discourses appearing within interdisciplinary arenas, using the diverse theories
that inspire postmodernism to reconfigure the conditions for the study of contemporary
cultures and societies. Within these fields, concepts for reconfigured objects of
study do not come from detached theoretical exercises but from »vital and active research
efforts in progress« (1995: 102ff.).
Applied to the present context, the answer to the question of »what, and where is
the ›field‹?« as raised by Howitt (2001: 198) lies in the methodological approach as described
above. As already indicated in the introductory outline, the study is explicitly
not an exploration in the sense of a single-site investigation that is focused exclusively
on local knowledge of indigenous farmers in Alta Verapaz. It instead has a broader
scope, encompassing levels of interaction across an enlarged field. Nevertheless, it is
an ethnographic contribution that is in the sense of Marcus »predicated upon attention
to the everyday, an intimate knowledge of face-to-face communities and groups«
(1995: 99). Although its configuration has been shaped by multi-sited experiences and
observations at different geographic locations and in various contextual settings, the
thesis essentially is an outcome of an intensively-focused field research that took place
in peasant communities in Guatemala. Within the multiscale scheme, primary attention
was paid to the ethnographic method of participatory observation. Initial questions,
conceptual considerations and reflections on the final form and content of the
study are admittedly a result of the fieldwork embedded in local terms. Simultaneously,
basic insights have been shaped by encounters of an academic and public nature
that took place beyond the village level. Beyond the discussions within the interdisciplinary
frame and observations made at international conferences, other occasions to
study discourse and policy aimed at biodiversity conservation evolved at numerous
different sites. In Germany for instance, workshops were organised in cooperation
with representatives of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and other governmental
institutions such as the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
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