Explanipedia

How to identify animal tracks, burrows and other signs of wildlife in your neighborhood Open

Sian Sullivan · 2025

Community-based conservation surveillance: an ethnographic analysis of the drivers and obstacles of local reporting on rhino and plains game poaching in Namibia Open

Ruben Schneider, Jeff R. Muntifering, Sian Sullivan · 2025

Intimidation as epistemological violence against social science conservation research Open

Stasja Koot, Nowella Anyango‐van Zwieten, Sian Sullivan, Wolfram Dressler, Marja Spierenburg , et al. · 2025

We investigated intimidation of conservation social scientists, which is ongoing and aimed at silencing or discrediting research findings. Although social scientists share with conservation biologists the desire to understand and address t…

9. Giraffes and their impact on key tree species in the Etendeka Tourism Concession, north-west Namibia Open

Kahingirisina Maoveka, Dennis Liebenberg, Sian Sullivan · 2024

We report on a study that researched the impacts of browsing giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis angolensis) on trees important for pollinators––namely, Maerua schinzii (ringwood tree) and Boscia albitrunca (shepherd’s tree)––within the Etende…

2. Spatial severance and nature conservation Open

Ute Dieckmann, Sian Sullivan, Selma Lendelvo · 2024

We review conservation policy and legislation and its impacts under the territory’s post World War 1 administration from Pretoria, prior to the formalisation of an Independent Namibia in 1990. We trace the history of nature conservation in…

3. CBNRM and landscape approaches to conservation in Kunene Region, post-Independence Open

Selma Lendelvo, Sian Sullivan, Ute Dieckmann · 2024

We review how national post-Independence policy supporting Community-Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) has played out in Etosha-Kunene, highlighting a new impetus towards a “landscape approach” for conservation in communal areas. …

13. Historicising the Palmwag Tourism Concession, north-west Namibia Open

Sian Sullivan · 2024

The Palmwag Tourism Concession comprises more than 550,000 hectares of the Damaraland Communal Land Area in Kunene Region. To the west lies the Skeleton Coast National Park. Otherwise, the Concession is situated within a mosaic of differen…

14. Living next to Etosha National Park Open

Arthur Hoole, Sian Sullivan · 2024

This chapter considers the implications of being park-adjacent for ovaHerero pastoralists now living in Ehi-Rovipuka Conservancy. Using PhD research conducted in 2006 and 2007 as a baseline, the chapter focuses on three dimensions. First, …

1. Etosha-Kunene, from “pre-colonial” to German colonial times Open

Sian Sullivan, Ute Dieckmann, Selma Lendelvo · 2024

We outline “pre-colonial” and German colonial structuring of “Etosha-Kunene”, leading in the early 1900s to the institution of formal game laws and game reserves as key elements of colonial spatial organisation and administration. We revie…

Conclusion Open

Ute Dieckmann, Selma Lendelvo, Sian Sullivan · 2024

This final chapter sums up the Etosha- Kunene Histories project’s exploration of colonialism, indigeneity and natural history in Namibia, through a wide-ranging analysis that aims to initiate and inform discussions on conservation policies…

Etosha-Kunene Conservation Conversations Open

Sian Sullivan, Ute Dieckmann, Selma Lendelvo · 2024

This introductory chapter describes how the Etosha- Kunene Histories research project, for which this edited volume forms a key contribution, addresses the challenge of conserving biodiversity-rich landscapes in Namibia’s north-central and…

12. Cultural heritage and histories of the Northern Namib / Skeleton Coast National Park Open

Sian Sullivan, Welhemina Suro Ganuses · 2024

We outline Indigenous cultural heritage and histories associated with the Northern Namib desert, designated since 1971 as the Skeleton Coast National Park. We draw on two main sources of information: 1) historical documents stretching back…

On the political ontology of making things up in political ecology critique: Responding to Bormpoudakis (2019) and Knudsen (2023) Open

Sian Sullivan · 2024

I engage with two recent articles published in the Journal of Political Ecology, both of which critique political ecology engagements with ontological and epistemological complexities. These complexities might be distilled into the idea th…

Hunting for conservation Open

Sian Sullivan · 2024

Hunting wildlife in the tropics and subtropics. Fa, J.E., S.M. Funk, and R. Nasi. 2022. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 436 pp. £39.99 (paperback). ISBN 978-1-107-54034-7. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316338704. Trophy hunting. B…

Extraction old and new: Toxic legacies of mining the desert in southwestern Africa Open

Mike Hannis, Sian Sullivan · 2023

This visual essay draws on a 2017 journey from the South African Cape to the Khan valley of Namibia, tracing toxic (deter)mining legacies of roots and routes of mineral extraction. Copper, ilmenite, diamond, zinc and uranium exploitations …

"Hunting Africa": how international trophy hunting may constitute neocolonial green extractivism Open

Sian Sullivan · 2023

In the post-Cold War neoliberal moment of the mid-1990s, Safari Club International's (SCI) nascent but now defunct 'African Chapter' published a Strategic Plan for Africa. Its aim was to secure the "greatest hunting grounds in the world" f…

CBNRM, national parks, elites, and ethnography: a comment on (mis)representations Open

Sian Sullivan · 2023

I respond to a recently published article in Ecology and Society, namely “Can the center hold? Boundary actors and marginality in a community-based natural resource management network” (Snorek and Bolger 2022). I provide additional informa…

Introducing “Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts” Open

Sian Sullivan, Michèle Baussant, Lindsey Dodd, Olivette Otele, Irène Dos Santos · 2022

This introductory paper outlines the conceptual framework and case studies comprising the research project Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts. Our project proposes a cross-disciplinary analysis and cross-case synthesis of experience and …

Cross-case synthesis Open

Sian Sullivan, Michèle Baussant, Lindsey Dodd, Olivette Otele, Irène Dos Santos · 2022

The project ‘Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts’ forming the focus of this Special Issue has researched biographical experiences that have undergone a rupture as a result of brutal political, social and/or economic changes, linked especi…

« Histoires perturbées, passés retrouvés », une introduction Open

Sian Sullivan, Michèle Baussant, Lindsey Dodd, Olivette Otele, Irène Dos Santos · 2022

This introductory paper outlines the conceptual framework and case studies comprising the research project Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts. Our project proposes a cross-disciplinary analysis and cross-case synthesis of experience and …

Conservation Science and Discursive Violence: A Response to Two Rejoinders Open

Stasja Koot, P.G.M. Hebinck, Sian Sullivan · 2022

We respond to two rejoinders to our review article “Science for Success,” which proposed fuller contextualization of epistemological approach, researcher position and interests in conservation research. This way readers—including reviewers…

Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis Open

Sian Sullivan · 2021

Climate change negotiations have failed the world. Despite more than thirty years of high-level, global talks on climate change, we are still seeing carbon emissions rise dramatically. This edited volume, comprising leading and emerging sc…

Introduction Open

Steffen Böhm, Sian Sullivan · 2021

13. Environmental Change in Namibia Open

Rick Rohde, M. Timm Hoffman, Sian Sullivan · 2021

11. I’m Sian, and I’m a Fossil Fuel Addict Open

Sian Sullivan · 2021

In recent years I have returned to west Namibia to work with elders of families I have known for more than two decades. Oral histories, recorded as we find and revisit places my companions knew as home, have increasingly struck a chord as…

Densities of meaning in west Namibian landscapes: genealogies, ancestral agencies, and healing Open

Sian Sullivan, Welhemina Suro Ganuses · 2021

Producing elephant commodities for 'conservation hunting' in Namibian communal-area conservancies Open

Lee John Hewitson, Sian Sullivan · 2021

Namibia's internationally acclaimed CBNRM program depends to a large extent on revenues generated from the trophy hunting of wild animals. The model is an important example of an increasingly 'neoliberal' global policy framework as applied…

Freshwater turtle by-catch from angling in New Brunswick, Canada Open

Constance L. Browne, Sian Sullivan, Donald F. McAlpine · 2020

Turtles are among the most threatened vertebrate taxa, with populations especially vulnerable to any increase in adult mortality. By-catch from freshwater angling, as a potential cause of turtle mortality is poorly documented and little un…

Science for Success—A Conflict of Interest? Researcher Position and Reflexivity in Socio-Ecological Research for CBNRM in Namibia Open

Stasja Koot, P.G.M. Hebinck, Sian Sullivan · 2020

This paper emphasizes the importance of researcher position and reflexivity for professionals in the ecological and development sciences. We draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze a selection of scientific papers written by N…

Towards a metaphysics of the soul and a participatory aesthetics of life: mobilising Foucault, affect and animism for caring practices of existence Open

Sian Sullivan · 2019

In his Lectures on Biopolitics (1978-79) Foucault highlighted the contemporary intensification of neoliberal arts of government, by which economic incentive structures are designed to control human behaviour and 'life itself' through marke…

Sian Sullivan YOU? Author Swipe