Becoming a 'place of origin': The conceptual and political conundrums of in situ conservatio

This thesis analyses and critiques the in situ potato conservation program, implemented in Cochabamba, Bolivia, which is part of a broader initiative seeking to protect the extremely rich and valuable Andean root and tuber diversity cultivated, mostly by small-scale, impoverished farmers, in the region. Using a post-structural, post-colonial and feminist political ecology approach, and drawing on "field" research and the analysis of the program's discourse, the thesis argues that, although this program is deemed successful, it is also deeply problematic. This is because it perpetuates colonial relations between the proponents of in situ conservation and the societies put in the position of "stewards of biodiversity", and because the ways in which it conceptualizes nature, society, and place embody the contradiction of modern environmentalism, which continually tries to separate nature and society while perpetually reproducing hybrids configured according to Western scientific worldviews.;The designation of a conservation site, described and enacted in the terms of the program's culturally and historically specific discourse is seen as a "symbolic conquest" (Escobar, 1996) of the place, its people and its potatoes. This conquest provides the stage for the discourse and, through this, for the reconstitution of the place. The representations of the local society as "traditional", "stewards of diversity", and potential entrepreneurs, and of the site's nature, as the origin of an inordinate diversity threatened by genetic erosion, enable a series of practices that encourage farmers to see themselves as the discourse does, and to fashion their valley into a "place of origin". The study shows however, that the farmers in the conservation site do not completely conform. Rather, they conduct their affairs in ways that diverge from the program's discourse. Similarly, questions are raised regarding the representation of the landscape, and the provenance and movement of genetic diversity within and beyond the conservation site.;The study argues that in situ conservation is as political as other conservation initiatives have been demonstrated to be, and that the conceptual foundations and discursive formations on which it is based must be re-evaluated, in order to provide for more socially just and ecologically sustainable conservation scenarios.