Accepted Panels

Knowledge is a contested domain. Global Conservation of Biodiversity is steeped in scientific knowledge whose roots lie in Western modernity and enlightenment. As the idea of conservation of protected areas and biodiversity spread, western modernity got amplified, weakening the relevance of placed-based knowledge systems for conservation. This is not something to be surprised about. Scientific knowledge benefits from the global exchange of information and knowledge through conservation networks and the internet. This paper argues for multiple ways of being and becoming in this world by problematising given and received wisdom of understanding human and non-human relationships. This calls for approaching human and non-human relationship from a Deleuzian perspective of assemblage. This paper argues that dominant knowledge systems maintain their position by discounting alternative modernities and their knowledge. However complex scientific knowledge tries to dominate, splinters of alternative systems will keep emerging as a counter to it. Anthropological knowledge from its beginnings has been on the side of alternative systems, which is essential for the discipline.