Seeking 'telos' in the 'transfrontier'? neoliberalism and the transcending of community conservation in Southern Africa

In Southern Africa the last ten years have seen a rather dramatic shift in donor and state interest and funding from 'community conservation' to 'transfrontier conservation'. The new trend broadens the aim of conservation - development interventions to also include interstate cooperation. The article critically analyzes this development within a wider shift in neoliberal politics. It is argued that this broader shift helped create the right 'enabling environment' for the transfrontier conservation discourse to be presented as an all-embracing and unifying ideological 'model of meaning'. Moreover, underlying neoliberalism's contemporary political conduct is a strong reassertion and the actual neoliberalisation of the state. It is this move that has truly enabled the 'transfrontier' to revive the telos of conservation in Southern Africa.

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