Discourse Analysis of Nature Conservation Policies in Africa: a Beninese Case Study

Abstract

Political ecology studies the relationship between nature and society, a complex issue that has been explored in the African context by many of its researchers over the past few decades. Applied to the field of conservation, this approach provides a way to highlight the social and political processes inherent to the understanding of biodiversity conservation and its implementation, the creation of protected areas. The Foucauldian discourse approach offers the possibility to put a special emphasis on power and how it produces "truths" which eventually drive nature conservation policies. On the basis of these theoretical insights, post-structural political ecologists have highlighted the existence of three main discourses supporting the implementation of nature conservation policies in Africa: “fortress” conservation discourse, community conservation discourse and “back to the barriers” discourse. The aim of this work is to examine the evolution of such policies in Benin. The contribution of this paper consists in confronting the political ecologist’s analytical framework to this particular case study and to verify whether discursive elements exist that can be related to the three aforementioned discourses. The results have shown that the discourses of nature conservation produced in Benin for over a century are relatively close to those identified in other African countries. In addition, the analysis reveals a certain status quo in nature conservation policies along the twentieth century despite the deep political and social changes.