Collaboration between CRC Projects B02, C03, A04 and the ERC Rewilding leads to new interdisciplinary publication on “Complexities of multispecies coexistence”

By Arvid van Dam (Project B02), Wisse van Engelen (ERC Rewilding), Detlef Müller-Mahn (Project C03), Sheila Agha (Project B02), Sandra Junglen (Project B02), Christian Borgemeister (Project B02) and Michael Bollig (Project A04 & ERC Rewilding)

Complexities of multispecies coexistence: Animal diseases and diverging modes of ordering at the wildlife–livestock interface in Southern Africa

Abstract

The transmission of diseases between wildlife and livestock poses a major challenge to both conservation and livestock sectors in Southern Africa. Focusing on the cases of foot and mouth disease and trypanosomiasis in the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, this article explores the complexity of coexistence between humans, livestock, wildlife, vectors and pathogens. Multispecies coexistence, we suggest, is best understood not only through the relations between species, but also as characterized by a collision of modes of ordering. Drawing on expert interviews and a discourse analysis of policy documents and reports, we identify three modes of ordering coexistence: a categorical and increasingly disfavoured mode of species eradication, a territorial mode focused on containment and separation, and an infrastructural mode premised on connectivity between populations, landscapes and ecosystems. Together, these different modes of ordering pose a challenge to scientific knowledge production; where uncertainties present themselves not so much in the form of ignorance or knowledge gaps, but rather in the form of ambiguity: of knowing diseases and species differently. In this view, living with pathogens becomes a matter of recognizing the partiality of knowledge and the positionality of knowledge producers and users, as well as highlighting potential sites of alignment.


Find the full text here

Van Dam, A., van Engelen, W., Müller-Mahn, D., Agha, S., Junglen, S., Borgemeister, C., & Bollig, M. (2023). Complexities of multispecies coexistence: Animal diseases and diverging modes of ordering at the wildlife–livestock interface in Southern Africa. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 0(0). DOI. Full Text

More CRC News

group foto taken at a workshop

Dissemination Workshop in Dodoma: Discussing Futures of Rural Transformation

On 25 April 2025, the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) Future Rural Africa co-hosted a Dissemination Workshop in Dodoma, Tanzania together with the German Institute of ...
Read More »
Thumbnail of a video featuring anna-katharina hornidge

Video: Anna-Katharina Hornidge on Research, Training and Value Chain Development in Tanzania

Anna-Katharina Hornidge is the director of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and researcher in Future Rural Africa Project B05 Science Futures. She ...
Read More »
geothermal energy plant in Kenya

New Publication: The Unintended Socio-Economic Transformations of Kenya’s Green Energy Boom

In this new publication, Clemens Greiner, Britta Klagge, Samuel Owuor (Project C02 Energy Futures) alognside Cynthia Wamukota and Isaiah Nyandega examine the unintended socio-economic impacts of ...
Read More »
Group photo with the minister, Deputy Minsiter, Parmanent Secretary, the Board members

Professor Theobald Frank Theodory Appointed to NEMC Board of Directors

We are proud to share that Professor Dr. Theobald Frank Theodory of Mzumbe University, Tanzania, and cooperation partner of Project C03 Green Futures, has been ...
Read More »
image of an african savannah

New Publication: How Land-Use Change Shapes Carbon Storage in African Savannas

In this article, Liana Kindermann, Alexandra Sandhage-Hofmann, Wulf Amelung, Jan Börner, J., Ezequiel Fabiano, Maximilian Meyer and Anja Linstädter (Project A01 Future Carbon Storage) and ...
Read More »
Scroll to Top