Rough Waters:
Nature and Development in an East African Marine Park
Christine J. Walley

Paper | 2004 | $28.95 / £19.95
336 pp. | 6 x 9 | 2 halftones. 2 line illus.

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Rough Waters explores one of the most crucial problems of the contemporary era--struggles over access to, and use of, the environment. It combines insights from anthropology, history, and environmental studies, mounting an interdisciplinary challenge to contemporary accounts of "globalization." The book focuses on The Mafia Island Marine Park, a national park in Tanzania that became the center of political conflict during its creation in the mid-1990s. The park, reflecting a new generation of internationally sponsored projects, was designed to encourage environmental conservation as well as development. Rather than excluding residents, as had been common in East Africa's mainland wildlife parks, Mafia Island was intended to represent a new type of national park that would encourage the participation of area residents and incorporate their ideas.

While the park had been described in the project's general management plan as "for the people and by the people," residents remained excluded from the most basic decisions made about the park. The book details the day-to-day tensions and alliances that arose among Mafia residents, Tanzanian government officials, and representatives of international organizations, as each group attempted to control and define the park. Walley's analysis argues that a technocentric approach to conservation and development can work to the detriment of both poorer people and the environment. It further suggests that the concept of the global may be inadequate for understanding this and other social dramas in the contemporary world.

Endorsements:

"The combination of an innovative structure and lucid, engaging prose enables Walley to present complex ideas and literatures in a consistently clear, coherent manner. She has a gift for distilling the key arguments, and her book offers novel insights into the process and practice of doing ethnographic research. One of the very best books I have read in recent years."--Dorothy L. Hodgson, Rutgers University

"An outstanding example of a theoretically informed and contemporary anthropology. Rich in research and highly readable, it will be of interest to readers in multiple fields."--Celia Lowe, University of Washington

Table of Contents:

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Glossary of KiSwahili Terms xv
Preface xix
Introduction
Conservation and Development in the Age of the Global 1
Part One 29
Chapter One
Battling for the Marine Park 31
Part Two 67
Chapter Two
"When People Were as Worthless as Insects": History, Popular Memory, and Tourism on Chole 69
Chapter Three
The Making and Unmaking of "Community" 105
Chapter Four
Where There Is No Nature 138
Part Three 167
Chapter Five
Establishing Experts: Conservation and Development from Colonialism to Independence 169
Chapter Six
Pushing Paper and Power: Bureaucracy and Knowledge within a National Marine Park 190
Chapter Seven
Tourist Encounters: Alternate Readings of Nature and "Development" 217
Epilogue
Participating in the Twenty-first Century 244
Notes 265
Bibliography 281
Index 299

Subject Area:

• Anthropology

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For customers in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Asia, and Australia
Paper: $28.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-11560-3

For customers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India
Paper: £19.95 ISBN13: 978-0-691-11560-3

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File created: 6/4/2009

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