Reply To: National Parks, civilisation and globalisation

Response to Anna’s commentary.

I think that we both find some of the same issues interesting from Carruthers lecture and seminar, and I enjoyed the Kenyan perspective you incorporate into the discussion. In some ways I feel a bit undereducated about the specifics when it comes to South African national parks (although more educated by this week’s readings and focus) and definitely undereducated when it comes to the Kenyan case. What remains apparent despite different global locations is the politics underlying national parks and in these two cases especially their colonial history.

I agree with your conclusion about reexamining the apparent nobility of some institutions such as national parks as their seemingly innocuous aims carry historical developments cloaked in prejudices and inequalities. However, it is a fine line to walk when one wants to engage in the field itself and use such institutions to their own ends and research and I find this issue to be unresolvable on all fronts. As we live in a ‘post colonial’ world and all that it has left behind, it seems a rather daunting task to dismantle everything and untangle the politics of it all. I suppose as people who are drawn towards post colonial and colonial projects and issues it is best to try and be as sensitive as possible without erasing our own space in this world.