Award Information
This research focuses on labor in forest conservation projects in Madagascar. I hypothesize that the structural position of low-wage workers in conservation and development projects, and the multiple labor relations of which they are a part, undermine conservation goals. I will spend 12 months in the Biosphere Reserve of Mananara-Nord on the central eastern coast of Madagascar examining whether workers' expressions and demonstrations of forest conservation principles change according to the collective labor process in which they participate. I will conduct interviews and participant observation with workers' during their job hours and when they perform their non-job-related ritual, agricultural, or entrepreneurial activities that use forest resources, such as trees, plants, or soils. A study of Malagasy conservation workers' tasks, experiences, thoughts of conservation, and competing obligations within multiple relations of production will offer insight into problems of long-term forest conservation that remain unanalyzed in development reports and scholarly literature.