Conservation-Related Displacement: Interrogating Notions of the Powerless Oustee

Abstract

"This paper investigates the recent relocation of Botezari village from Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, India, and argues that it may illustrate the very early beginnings of a wider changing trajectory and politics of conservation-related displacement. Such displacement is largely presented, both in India and elsewhere in the Developing World, as indicative of a persisting lack of interest in seeking input from local communities on the management of natural resources. Indeed, most academic work describes conservation-related displacement as characterized by acute oustee powerlessness versus overwhelming state power. Drawing from empirical research conducted in Botezaris pre-relocation phase, I suggest that linking displacement with such extreme local powerlessness may increasingly need some qualification, at least in the Indian context. In the Botezari case, the majority of villagers, though not a cohesive group, were relatively open to being moved from the reserve, and had the confidence to push for their rights to be fulfilled and additional demands considered. The villagers were also fairly clear in their views on natural resource management and their potential role within such management, while the displacement authority, though ambitious, was socially-aware and, to a degree, responsive to local attitudes and perspectives. This, combined with lively NGO and press presence, facilitated some constructive dialogue, culminating in certain meaningful concessions and a limited, but still perceptible, power structure shift, which, I argue, provides some slight challenge to the conventional theory of the powerless oustee. At least in the Indian context, new displacement policies and legislation, a gradual deepening of civil society, and a growing emphasis on more bottom-up, participatory development and conservation strategies, could be starting to allow conservation-related oustee communities a slightly greater level of influence over both their destinies and those of the natural resources that surround them."