Johansson, T: Beasts on Fields

Human-wildlife conflicts are today an integral part of the rural development discourse. These conflicts often occur when a wild animal crosses a perceived borderline between nature and culture, between the domesticated and the wild, and enters into the realms of the other. This borderline marks a perceived division of spatial content in our senses of place. Contemporary wildlife conservation faces serious challenges in trying to form a balance between human needs and survival of endangered wild animal species, as it is increasingly taking place in heavily human-affected ecosystems. This book studies the spatial dimensions of human-wildlife conflicts in borderland communities in the Liwale district, Tanzania, where humans and free roaming wild animals share space. The author investigates the inclusion and exclusion of certain wild animal species from particular types of spaces and explains the causes of human-wildlife conflicts through locally perceived nature-culture borderlands. Wild animals which intrude into domesticated spaces become subjects ‘out of space‘ and challenge the total control of humans over natural elements in these spaces.