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    A cultural herpetology of Nile crocodiles in Africa

    Pooley, Simon (2016) A cultural herpetology of Nile crocodiles in Africa. Conservation and Society 14 (4), pp. 391-405. ISSN 0972-4923.

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    Abstract

    Human-wildlife conflict is a growing problem worldwide wherever humans share landscapes with large predators, and negative encounters with eight species of the crocodilians is particularly widespread. Conservationists’ responses to these adverse encounters have focused on the ecological and behavioural aspects of predators, rather than on the social, political, and cultural contexts which have threatened their existence in the first place. Few studies have thusfar tried to understand the rich, varied, contradictory and complex relations that exist between particular humans and human societies, and particular predators and groups of predators. It is in the spirit of Brian Morris’s explorations of the interactional encounters and co-produced sociabilities that exist between humans and animals in specific places and regions that this paper offers a cultural herpetology (an account of human-crocodile interrelations) of the Nile crocodile (Crocodilus niloticus and C. suchus) in Africa. It draws on extensive historical documentation of the interactions of humans and crocodiles across Africa to examine how diverse and complex human responses to Nile crocodiles have been, and continue to be, and suggests some implications for improving human-crocodile relations.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Africa, Nile crocodile, human wildlife conflict, human-predator relations, wildlife conservation, African culture
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Simon Pooley
    Date Deposited: 25 Jan 2017 14:48
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:27
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/16398

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