The project aims at an ethnographic and comparative research on interspecific cohabitations in the mountain environments between wildlife (particularly bears and wolves), other non-humans and humans. The main objective is mapping the complex field of local and super-local actors involved and bring out the critical issues of coexistence in order to find shared, participatory and sustainable solutions. Ethnography will take into consideration the debates and conflicts arising from the relationships between human communities and farmed biodiversity, domestic and wild species.
Ethnography aims at the account of multiple positions in this multi-scale context consisting of:
- territorial control and management policies
- legal frameworks about the protection of animal husbandry on the one hand and landscape-naturalistic conservation on the other
- breeding activities aimed at the conservation of grazing areas and the protection of animals and relative products
- animal rights activism with its sometimes assertive positioning in the public space
- local communities affected by the reintroduction of wildlife (attacked by wolves and other wild animals)
- multidisciplinary experts’ positioning
- economic and tourist activities sometimes inherently controversial in relationships to extensive pastoralism
- protected areas transforming and sometimes even commodifying natural habitats and species into elements of territorial enhancement, often regardless of the intrinsic value of species and biodiversity.
The questions generated by this framework and to which the project intends to give answers and attention are:
1. AGENCY: who and in what capacity is called to decide on how to manage this interspecific relationship and coexistence: institutions, trade associations, breeders, animal rights activists, scientists in their various and specific areas of expertise and application?
2. ENTANGLEMENTS: what are the interspecific coexistences also in terms of influence on ecosystems: imbalance due to excessive reproduction, loss of other species due to excessive predation and consequent loss of biodiversity, limitation in human movements in certain areas of the territory resulting from fear the meeting (Stokland Hakon 2015)?
3. NARRATIVES: which narratives and representations of the wild are arousing from contemporary communities also due to a growing commodification of protected areas and wilderness? How is it assessed the marketable value of a reserve of nature? (Muray Mayako 2017; Kosek 2010; Sjölander-Lindkvist, Cinque 2013);
4. PARTICIPATION: what is the more or less real involvement of the local communities involved and affected by the issue / problem in the decision-making processes? Which forms have been adopted to facilitate local communities’ inclusion and involvement, taking into account the issue of interests in the field, survival of particular activities threatened by the increase in the presence of predators (breeding, crops, tourism)?