The politics of the liminal and the liminoid in transfrontier conservation in southern Africa

Nature conservation in South(ern) Africa was for a long time dominated by white males and funded by a white elite. In post-apartheid South Africa, government and conservation organisations have attempted to transform the sector by promoting the idea that local (black) residents - often previously evicted and excluded from nature conservation areas should benefit economically from them. Concurrently, the old elite needed to legitimise its place in post-apartheid South Africa. One attempt was by promoting Peace Parks - trans frontier conservation areas stretching across national borders. These were intended to become monuments to celebrate peace in the region and a more inclusive approach to nature conservation. Referring to Victor Turner's ideas about ritual transformations and the concept of liminality, one could argue that trans frontier parks constitute liminal spaces where international borders no longer matter and which serve the ritual transformation of formerly hostile regional relations as well as the transformation of nature conservation towards inclusion - celebrating new communitas. However, as Donald Weber (1995) argues, this interpretation ignores culture as a political manifestation. Taking the establishment of the Great Limpopo Trans frontier Park as an example, this article shows that celebrations to mark the various stages of the Park's implementation hid the struggles between the governments involved, and between (new and old) elites and local residents, about the meaning of the celebrations and the objectives of the Park. Ultimately, instead of a liminal space for the ritual transformation of nature conservation, the Park appeared to become a liminoid space for the old elite whose definitions of conservation still dominate.