Presented to Centre for the Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, Carnegie Mellon University, Pitt

1. ‘Complexity, networks and environment in the South African lowveld’Professor Robert ThorntonAnthropology,Witwatersrand University, JohannesburgSouth Africa Presented to Centre for the Integrated Study of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

2. Dimensions of social complexity South African lowveld societies are complex in a number of dimensions: • Race, income, class, employment, ‘rural’ & ‘urban’ • Ethnicity, religion and language • Governance—Chiefship, municipal & local government • Regionalism, settlement patterns, Provinces • Transnational & labour migration

3. Impact of social & cultural diversity on environmental issues • Diversity creates both strengths and weaknesses in approach to environment • Strengths include: high tourism potential, multiple levels of governance (also a weakness), overlapping identities that lead (paradoxically) to social coherence. • Weaknesses include: low levels of political/organisational capacity, poor decision-making processes, multiple & poorly regulated demands on natural resources.

4. Sources of demand for environmental resources • Tourism development: lodges & hotels (private and state) • Local natural resource extraction: • Wood for carving, firewood, building poles, etc. • Grass for thatching • ‘Herbs’ and animals for indigenous healers (bark, wood, roots, leaves; fur, bones, fat …) • Large-scale mineral and water extraction • Mining, water for irrigation • Land for settlement, farming, grazing.

5. Organisational sources of problems & conflicts • Lack of clear land-tenure & water usage regime; uncertain ownership and registration • Low levels of political sophistication • Conflicting political regimes (local/traditional, municipal, Provincial, National, party) • High expectations for ‘development’ • Low adminstrative capacity for delivery

6. Substantive sources of conflict • Porous borders and trans-national migration and settlement; • Land restitition claims and land-tenure reforms; • Little differentiation between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’; • HIV/AIDS, poverty, poor education, etc. • Little stable industry & employment

7. The Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park • The GLTP and associated nature conservation areas will be implemented in a highly diverse, complex, multi-national social and cultural context, in a relatively fragile and threatened ecological system. • CMU & Wits U research consortium will address this complexity

8. Challenge and solutions • The Challenge: to understand and to describe how the apparent diverse interests do / may / can work together, and to understand how to resolve conflicts effectively • The Solution: To focus attention on networks of actors rather than on often-dysfunctional institutions.

9. Networks of actors and flows • While institutions often fail in the lowveld, and are distrusted, real political action happens through networks of actors. • Flows of knowledge, capital, natural resources, & personnel are channeled by individuals and small organisations in ways that by-pass institutions (including the State[s]) and transcend social and cultural differences.

10. Networks — a focus for research • Analysis of social networks has been developed in Anthropology since the 1960s • Previously applied to small-scale societies based on kinship, friendship, & client-patron relations • We will apply this to discover the multi-scale order in the social chaos of the lowveld society, and show how networks structure social action with respect to the environment in the GLTP region

11. Scale of networks • Networks consist of actors from Government, Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), Community-based organisations (CBOs), ‘Faith-based organisations’ (FBO), Donor Agencies, Private Investors and Industry, among others. • Network ‘nodes’ may be individuals or organisations or combinations of these. • Networks link across ‘local’ actors as well as from local to global actors, transcending national boundaries, localities, governments, identitites. • Networks link to other networks at different scales.

12. Local-local networks • Networks of actors from multiple organisations make decisions about resource use; • ‘Specialised’ institutions (such as environmental NGOs) cannot function without generalised ‘consultation’ or ‘facilitation’ with all conceivable others; • Limited scope for ‘division of labour’ under current expectations for ‘democracy’ and ‘transparency’; • Consequently: an elaboration of networks and information flows that lead, at times, to stasis.

13. Local-global linkages • Lowveld networks often link directly to global networks of donor agencies & global/trans-national NGOs. • Examples: • Chiefs who deal directly with international donor agencies or private individuals to develop environmental education or tourism facilities • Land claimants who liaise with international organisations/researchers/facilitators

14. Temporal frameworks • Networks (local-local, local-global) transform over time • The network has a history and a trajectory that will structure future change • We will develop an environmental and network history from extensive archival material from a labour recruitment agency, TEBA/WNLA comprising around 75 cu m of archives covering most of the 20th century.

15. Research outputs • Analysis of multi-scale networks in GLTP area, focusing on flows of personnel, knowledge, capital and resources • Development of Internet based Digital History and Data archive covering all aspects of the project, including maps, papers, archive materials, etc.

16. Thanks for listening! Bye… Robert Thornton, Anthropology, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa