Inequalities in knowledge systems: Biodiversity conservation in Tanzania Mathew Bukhi Mabele, Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge
Event details
IGDC Lecture
Tanzania is a popular keyword in biodiversity conservation publications, but, trends in research collaborations, scientific knowledge production and authors’ productivity remain underexplored.
Using the Web of Science database and bibliometric analysis techniques, we fill this gap by examining the trends between 1972 and 2021. The database search produced 1,517 records. We filtered the data using document types and subject categories as criteria. We used bibliometrix package in R software to analyse 1,354 peer-reviewed publications.
Through performance analysis, science mapping and network analysis, journal publications, author and institutional productivity, disciplinary focus, funding agencies and network of authorship and institutional collaborations are identified.
Whereas African Journal of Ecology, PLoS One and Biological Conservation top the scientific production list, Biological Conservation, Conservation Biology and Oryx top the citation list. Major research inequalities are revealed where, European and North American centricity dominates in author productivity (number of papers, total citations and h-index), author collaborations networks and research funding agencies. Out of the top 20 highly cited papers, eleven had no Tanzanian author. The list had only two papers with Tanzanians as first authors. We observed a proliferation of international researchers and decreased productivity of local researchers in the last 30 years.
Organisations from Europe and North America provided much of the research funding in Tanzania. This is possibly one of the first attempts to illustrate empirically how production and dissemination of conservation knowledge are entrenched in unequal structures at a country level. It thus contributes to the burgeoning literature on decolonisation of conservation research and discussions around ethics in North-South research collaborations.
Mathew Bukhi Mabele will be joined online by his co-authors for this session; Wilhelm Kiwango, Enock Makupa, Ng'winamila Kasongi, Happiness Nnko, and Iddi Mwanyoka.
About the speaker
Mathew Bukhi Mabele is a visiting research fellow at the Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge, UK and a lecturer and conservation social scientist at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Dodoma, Tanzania. He teaches and researches on the governance (interested in use, access and distribution aspects) of human-environment interactions in tropical ecosystems. He applies political ecology and decolonial theories in his research to understand underlying systemic structures and processes that drive socio-ecological injustices, and explore alternative pathways for just conservation in the ecosystems. He specifically studies knowledge systems, power and politics over framings of concepts such as conservation, Anthropocene, environmental degradation, charcoal, poaching, coexistence, bioeconomy and sustainability at policy level, and resulting consequences for everyday governance and socio-ecological justice in the ecosystems. His works appear in peer-reviewed international journals in geography, sustainability, development, energy, forestry, environment and conservation.