Abstract
In East Africa, settler-colonization during the Scramble for Africa period and the militarized conservation regimes that became a common feature of colonial governance in the region, characterized by conserved land secured via fences and patrols of armed rangers, fundamentally altered locals’ access to and relationship with their land and natural environment. In parallel to the impacts on locals’ relationship with nature, direct colonial governance impacted local expressions of leisure. Colonial authorities often enforced particular activities during times normally allocated as free time, forcing individuals sometimes to perform tasks or engage in activities contrary to local conceptions of leisure. This paper draws linkages between two discrete but related scholarly literatures focusing on African contexts: the lasting influences of a particular period and type of colonization on local peoples’: (a) conceptions of leisure, and (b) relationships to their natural environment. East Africa is the primary regional focus, to contain the scope. Snowballing literature search and database keyword searches are used for literature review, in which African-authored scholarship is prioritized to address Euro-North American bias in academic research. Evidence in the literature describes how leisure and perceptions of nature were constrained and redefined during the settler-colonial period and their evolution in the postcolonial era inform how leisure and perceptions of nature are shaped in the present. However, the paper focuses only lasting impacts of a particular period and type of colonization, and thus the lasting impacts are likely to be deeper than those described in this analysis. Next, the paper draws on intersections of these literatures to examine a contemporary issue in East Africa: recent efforts to increase domestic ecotourism by encouraging locals to engage in nature-based recreation activities and leisure experiences. The paper contributes to the African ecotourism literature by intersecting colonization, sociology of leisure, and tourism literatures to identify contemporary historically-rooted opportunities and challenges in domestic ecotourism in East Africa, highlighting gaps in sociology of leisure and ecotourism literatures pertaining to prospective African tourists’ perceptions of ecotourism activities.
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Land Acknowledgement
This article was written partly in Uganda, and partly on the University Park campus of Pennsylvania State University in the United States. Uganda, which experienced various forms of British settler-colonization from 1894 to 1964, is home to over 40 local languages and several interconnected and historically and culturally rich kingdoms including but not limited to the Buganda, Bunyoro, Toro, Ankole and Bugosa. Pennsylvania State University is on the original homelands of the Erie, Haudenosaunee (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora), Lenape (Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe, Stockbridge-Munsee), Shawnee (Absentee, Eastern, and Oklahoma), Susquehannock, and Wahzhazhe (Osage) Nations, displaced by settler-colonization and the extension of the University as a land grant institution (see Pennsylvania State University’s Land Acknowledgment http://equity.psu.edu/acknowledgement-of-land). As co-authors, we are committed to understanding our role and the role of our institution in shaping the history and modern social, political, and geographic landscapes where we reside and conduct research. We note that this paper, focused on the historical and contemporary implications of settler-colonization and its violence and displacement, was written in contexts and by co-authors that have been heavily influenced by that history, and are still engrained in systems that are shaped by various forms of colonialism.
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Co-author Katie P. Bernhard is United States-based and of mixed European descent, and is a former resident of Rwanda and Uganda. Her primary expertise pertaining to this paper is in the application of decolonial research methodologies. Co-author Dr. Edwin Sabuhoro is a United States-based Rwandan and a former Ugandan refugee. Dr. Sabuhoro’s primary expertise pertaining to this paper is in ecotourism, nature-based activities, and community conservation in East Africa. Co-author Dr. John Dattilo is United States-based and of European descent. Dr. Dattilo’s primary expertise pertaining to this paper is in leisure studies, inclusive leisure, and the sociology of leisure. All three co-authors hold affiliation with a Western, North American academic institution, Pennsylvania State University, and reflect on this academic, social, and physical positionality in research seeking to address the same Euro-North American bias in academic literatures to which we simultaneously contribute. Additionally, following Fox and McDermott (2018), we reflect on how our discussion of local perspectives in East Africa within the neocolonial logic of Western research could perpetuate and extend colonial logics that we discuss in this article.
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Bernhard, K.P., Sabuhoro, E. & Dattilo, J. Colonial Influence on Local Relationships with Leisure and Environment in East Africa: Intersecting Two Literatures to Reflect on Domestic Ecotourism. Int J Sociol Leis 5, 445–464 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-022-00115-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-022-00115-9