Beyond Community:

Abstract

This dissertation explores the complex structures and diverse experiences of globalization through the specific analytical lens of community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). CBNRM is an undertaking which is fundamentally local but also integrally connected to transnational conservation ideology and national structures of authority. While recent critiques of community-based conservation projects have challenged the universal efficacy of the approach, CBNRM continues to be a ubiquitous conservation paradigm and to provide lingering hope for local empowerment through resource management. Focusing on two community-based conservation groups formed in Tanzania and Zanzibar, this dissertation looks at the experience of local groups attempting to engage with broader national or international conservation networks by focusing on three tropes of globalization theory: intersections between traditional ecological knowledge and western science, the relationship between civil society and the state, and the specific mechanisms for local engagement with national and global entities. The community groups in this study use dynamic and adaptive strategies to channel resources into their communities. However, they also face significant structural constraints, many of which reveal the neocolonial effects of transnational conservation ideology. This work explores both the factors limiting or manipulating local participation in resource management and the strategies used by these two community-based conservation groups to ensure their participation in spite of those limitations.