Events

Decades after independence and the end of apartheid, why have forest communities in Zimbabwe and South Africa not been able to recover the land and resource rights they lost under colonialism?  This lecture, based on Frank Matose's recent book, examines the politics of conservation in southern Africa through the lens of chronic liminality, a “state of in-betweenness” or “waiting”, to explain the status quo in local people–state forest relationships and why progress has been so slow.

Frank Matose is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and a Co-Director of the Environmental Humanities South Centre at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His research interests are in environmental sociology with a particular focus on Southern Africa, placing emphasis on the intersection of local people, the state, capital, forest and resource conservation, and the political economy of protected areas. He is an active team member of the "Living Landcapes" Project.