Project
Politics of bird conservation and hunting tourism
Broadly speaking, this research is looking into the politics of migratory bird conservation and hunting tourism. It specifically focuses on hunting tourism by Maltese hunters in Egypt. The meeting of both migratory birds and hunters in Egypt, creates tensions between conservation efforts and hunting tourism. In order to understand these tensions and their influence on bird conservation, this research seeks to understand the relevant social contexts, historical dynamics, and power relations.
Background
Discussions concerning politics of transboundary conservation have predominantly focused on bordering territories, leaving the unique conservation challenges of transboundary conservation across spatially distant places, such as non-neighbouring territories along flyways of migratory birds, largely unexplored. This is generally concerning given declines in migratory birds in recent decades and specifically in the Mediterranean where these declines are exacerbated by notorious hunting practices, including hunting tourism.
Project description
By adopting a political ecology approach, this research will investigate hunting tourism by Maltese hunters in Egypt. Such hunting tourism exposes geographic unevenness that supports hunters’ mobilities and creates tensions across the Global North and South, between bird hunting and bird watching, and between hunting tourism and the possibilities of conviviality with birds. Through multi-sited ethnography, semi-structured interviews, analysis of policy documents, and archival and historical research, this project is investigating the tensions stemming from the encounter of transboundary conservation and hunting tourism, thus offering insight into the politics of transboundary conservation of migratory birds.