Search for: All records

Sensibilisation is a French term often translated to awareness raising but which encompasses a broader set of practices and philosophies intended to foster behavior change among target audiences. For those working on biodiversity conservation, sensibilisation is central to their work yet its meanings and methods vary. In this article, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork in Kanaky/New Caledonia to examine discourses of sensibilisation among conservationists using a political ecology framework. I use the concept of conservation morality to demonstrate how the moral imperative of conservation drives conservationists to use sensibilisation to enroll others into adopting specific attitudes and behavior. Two models of sensibilisation emerged: a Francophone and a Kanak model. The Francophone model centered scientific knowledge and was motivated by biodiversity protection, whereas the Kanak model was rooted in hands-on learning and motivated by perpetuating cultural and familial heritage. Both models seek to shape the territory's ecological future, but their power to capacitate change is predicated on asymmetrical knowledge and resource flows. I argue that the drive, and different motivations, for sensibilisation are reflective of broader tensions over the fate of the territory's political future as Independent from or a territory of France. 

Co-management is an environmental governance framework that seeks to empower communities in decision-making and action, but which risks overburdening them in assigning management actions. Management plans codify co-management objectives and actions and offer a dataset for analyzing project discourses, how responsibilities are distributed, and how projects may either empower or overburden management partners. Here, I combine insights from ethnographic research with content and discourse analysis of five co-management plans from Province Nord, Kanaky/New Caledonia using a technique I name action-verb analysis. I use action-verb analysis to assess the responsibilization—or task assignment—of the eight most responsibilized actors. Results show that actors have generalized or specialized roles and that Indigenousled associations were tasked with a diversity of tasks but sometimes lacked resources to complete them. I consider how co-management arrangements may avoid overburdening Indigenous partners and how Indigenous sovereignty can be supported in co-management so that empowerment is achieved.