Remapping Africa through peace parks

UCT’s Professor Maano Ramutsindela, an expert on political geography and political ecology, will deliver his inaugural lecture on Wednesday, 21 February 2018.

Ramutsindela, who is deputy dean of the Faculty of Science, has a background in human geography with a particular interest in South Africa’s socio-political and development challenges and the world economy. Through his research themes – which relate to borders, regions, land reform and transfrontier conservation – he engages with the broader debate on the conceptions and institutionalisation of borders and their (im)materiality, territorial politics, regionalisms and society–nature relations.

His inaugural lecture is titled “Remapping Africa through peace parks: What future for the continent?”

The establishment and development of peace parks, also known as transfrontier conservation areas, is an approach to jointly manage natural resources across political boundaries.

In his lecture, Ramutsindela will discuss the development of peace parks in Africa’s borderlands, the future they promise, their implications for the ownership of resources, as well as how ordinary people experience them. He will also explore whether peace parks are just a new cartographic device by which a colonial project of resource alienation and control is continued in post-independence Africa.

This public event will be held at 17:00 for 17:30 in Lecture Theatre 1 in the Kramer Law Building on middle campus.

To attend, please reply online by 16 February.

For enquiries, please email or phone 021 650 3730 / 4847.