The National Park Gesäuse Partnership: From resistance to cooperation
Gahbauer Christoph, University of Graz (AT)
In this thesis I examine the main reasons why the National Park Gesäuse Partnership was established and how it subsequently developed until today. I offer an ethnographic account of the creation and development of this organisation that currently establishes the cooperation between the National Park Gesäuse and a group of 87 local companies. By using a combination of questionnaires and qualitative interviews, conducted with key-informants, and participant observations of events, I generated the data on the National Park Gesäuse Partnership, which I subsequently analysed by using keyconcepts drawn from Michel Callon's idea of the cycle of translation. I used the four ‘moments' that compose the cycle of translation as an analytical guide to look into some of the different kinds of interactions and power relations between many human and non-human actors involved in the genesis and evolution of the Partnership, which I broadly interpret as an actor-network. The analysis I present in this thesis highlights that the Partnership was created in order to solve two specific problems, namely the resistance of local inhabitants to the establishment of the National Park and the weakness of the local economy in the Gesäuse area. My analysis shows that, despite some initial difficulties in the first stages of its formation, the Partnership eventually developed into a solid, but still evolving, actor-network that was successful in overcoming the scepticism of local people towards the park and to convince local companies to collaborate amongst themselves and with the National Park. Furthermore, my analysis points to how the Partnership was able to create a new social capital in the area and contributed to strengthening the local economy. My thesis broadly contributes to academic and policy-making debates on nature conservation and local socio-economic development by providing an analysis of some of the reasons why such partnerships are established and how they may develop.