Women’s stories and experiences with wildlife 819


psychological costs (Doubleday, 2020). Women frequently have different conceptualizations of social well-being (Milner-Gulland et al., 2014; Woodhouse & McCabe, 2018), and attitudes towards wildlife (Kellert & Berry, 1987; Roque de Pinho et al., 2014; Mkonyi et al., 2017), and participate less in community decision-making processes (Keane et al., 2016) and wildlife ranger activities (Seager et al., 2021). Scholars of feminist political ecology have illu- strated how gendered differences in nature–society rela- tions are enacted, reinforced and challenged, but have rarely addressed relations with wildlife. Hovorka (2015) ar- gued for more integration of feminist scholarship and ani- mal studies, to move beyond a focus on gendered impacts of wildlife and conservation towards analyses of gendered experiences, knowledge and feelings about wildlife. We attend to that call here, while highlighting the im-


portance of stories as told by Indigenous communities (Fernández-Llamazares & Cabeza, 2018), and women in particular (Rocheleau, 1991), as normative devices that ex- plain relationships, feelings, beliefs and knowledge about the natural world (Kimmerer, 2013). As Indigenous scholar- activist Leanne Simpson stated (2017,p. 20), ‘theory and praxis, story and practice are interdependent, cogenerators of knowledge’. Not all members of communities tell, hear and practice the same sets of stories. We present stories and experiences from women in two


areas where wildlife conservation has a strong historical presence alongside Indigenous resource-dependent popu- lations: Maasai in the northern Tanzanian rangelands and Soligas in South Indian forested highlands. We present these cases neither for direct comparison nor for generaliz- ability, but to draw from the experiences of MJG and SNJ as female researchers investigating similar patterns in differ- ent locations. Mara Goldman has worked with Maasai in Tanzania and Kenya for over 2 decades. She started work in India exploring how different knowledge and experiences were addressed in the community conservation work of a teaching/research/action NGO and was surprised to find gender as a category often marginalized or ignored. Shruthi Jagadeesh shared this experience, as she worked with tribal forest communities as part of the research and outreach campaigns of local environmental research organi- zations in South India. As women, we were interested in hearing from women, and particularly attuned to their min- imal presence and participation at meetings and in research as subjects or assistants. In addition to our personal research experiences, the two


locations share similarities and have differences that make their inclusion in a joint study significant. Exclusionary wildlife conservation practices and laws, upheld today by global conservation organizations, were introduced to India and Tanzania with British colonialism. Both areas are home to resource-dependent residents, biodiversity hotspots, and long-term conservation activities. Indigenous


populations in both locations have long been advocating for greater involvement in conservation along with greater land tenure security. In India, the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act of 2006, commonly referred to as the Forest Rights Act, is being utilized for both purposes, although its imple- mentation has been minimal and contested (CFR-LA, 2016). In Tanzania, national land laws are being used to prioritize tenure security for villages, but national conservation legis- lation works against real devolution of rights and responsi- bilities (Benjaminsen et al., 2013). Little if any attention has been paid to the gendered nature of wildlife conservation in either locale. We argue that without the active participation of women in research and action, their specific knowledge and experiences remain overlooked, weakening the effec- tiveness of and support for conservation. Much of the research and conservation work in both communities has focused on men, who are often assumed to be the cultural and political leaders, traditional knowl- edge holders and decision makers responsible for the labour of herding, hunting, farming and managing the land, with women assumed to have limited rights or desires to engage with affairs outside the home (Hodgson, 2001; Ogra, 2012). Not only is this a superficial understanding of the complex gender dynamics mediating social relations within Maasai and Soliga communities, where micro-power dynamics determine interpersonal relations at different scales, across clans, age, wealth and location, but much is also changing in both places (Goldman & Little, 2015; Venkatesh et al., 2020). Drawing from our own data and the work of others, we


suggest that these underlying assumptions about gendered differences in experience and expertise often drive the exclu- sion of women from wildlife conservation projects. We pre- sent preliminary findings about these assumptions and an overview of the limited and changing levels of participation of women in community conservation. We then challenge the assumptions, by presenting Soliga and Maasai women’s stories and observations, experiences, and knowledge about wildlife. We do this not to essentialize women in these spaces, but to present a case for the need to include women in conservation. We do this broadly, and use our conclusion to suggest ways to take the complexity of gender seriously in community-based wildlife conservation.


Study areas


Research was conducted in the Tarangire–Manyara Ecosystem of Tanzania (Fig. 1) during 2004–2019, and in the Biligiri Ranganathaswamy Temple Tiger Reserve in India (Fig. 2) during January–June 2018 and June–August 2019 and with conservation research and activist NGOs across the country.


Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 818–826 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000363


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