Mr Francisco Gelves-Gómez1, Associate Professor Jennifer Carter2, Professor Ruth Beilin3, Dr Shannon Brincat2
1Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Australia,
2School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Australia,
3School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
This paper proposes to critically study the everyday socioecological relations of protected areas adaptive management and their dominant practices that discursively re-(produce) the Anthropocene. The relational ontologies present in scholarly projects such as more-than-human geographies, or the epistemologies of the South through ideas such as ‘el sentipensar’ (Feeling-Thinking), offer different forms to critically reflect about human-Nature relationships, the embodied and embedded realities of protected areas and biodiversity conservation. Problematising spatio-temporal and human-Nature relations focuses attention to the contingencies of everyday adaptive management practice. The importance of studying the messiness of spatial and temporal entanglements between humans and nonhumans, by focusing on the daily practice of adaptive management, emerges as central to the perspective of everyday practice offering a space to think about the complex process of protected areas management. I will present my preliminary understanding of the sociocultural and ecological contexts in the Whitsunday Islands National Park. In this first phase, I will have examined if and how instrumental views of human-Nature relationships in, for instance management documents and scientific management practices, inform expectations of adaptive management practice.
Biography:
Francisco Gelves-Gómez is a PhD student. Francisco’s research interest lie at the interface between the natural and social sciences including: more-than-human geography, socio-ecological systems and resilience thinking, biodiversity conservation, Indigenous peoples’ relationships with the environment, inter/transdisciplinary research. He is part of the Landscape and Environmental Sociology Research Group at The University of Melbourne, and is currently doing his PhD (Geography) at the Sustainability Research Centre in The University of the Sunshine Coast
