| This dissertation examines how people negotiate rightful ownership and access to contested space undergoing governance change. Based on 24 months of ethnographic research on protected area conservation in The Bahamas, this dissertation explores how people maintain and transgress material and symbolic boundaries as the west side of Andros Island transitions from a locally-valued commons to globally-valued protected area. In response to growing global concerns over declining fisheries and vulnerability of small island nations, the Bahamas Government has declared large tracts of land and sea as protected areas throughout the archipelago nation. Andros Island, as the largest and most rural island, has been reconfigured as an ideal location for protection, as an island both abundant in natural resources and vulnerable to change. In Andros, access and ownership claims are managed though multilayered customs and laws including long-standing oral tenure institutions. Conservationists, Bahamian residents, scientists, and resource users claim rights of access to resources and space through socially embedded processes which create, impose, maintain, bridge, transpose and dispute boundaries. Discernible differences exist in each person's claim, not only in the types of boundaries marked by individuals from different social spheres, but in how people enact a sense of entitlement and rightful claim through different ideas of legitimacy and belonging. My research finds that personal and social attributes such as class, race, and social and economic status inform how people: 1) perceive the environment as well as policies of protected area enclosure, and 2) negotiate particular spatial and social boundaries including property claims, knowledge claims, resource access rights, and belonging. What constitutes a rightful claim of access and ownership is not a fixed phenomenon, but reflects fluid social positioning, such as racial identity, kinship, and knowledge performativity. Ignoring the divergence in how people make claims can lead to a mismatch in resource management strategies, (and ultimately to failed policy initiatives), as well as loss of material and symbolic wealth and security among people living near protected areas. |
