Situating safari tourism within the discourses and practices of development, Selling the Serengeti examines the relationship between the Maasai people of northern Tanzania and the extraordinary influence of foreign-owned ecotourism and big game-hunting companies. It looks at two major discourses and policies surrounding biodiversity conservation, the championing of community-based conservation and the neoliberal focus on private investment in tourism, and their profound effect on Maasai culture and livelihoods. This ethnographic study explores how these changing social and economic relationships and forces remake the terms through which state institutions and local people engage with foreign investors, communities, and their own territories. The book highlights how these new tourism arrangements change the shape and meaning of the nation-state and the village and in the process remake cultural belonging and citizenship.

Benjamin Gardner's experiences in Tanzania began during a study abroad tripin 1991. His stay led to a relationship with the nation and the Maasai people in Loliondo lasting almost twenty years; it also marked the beginning of his analysis and ethnographic research into social movements, market-led conservation, and neoliberal development around the Serengeti.

About the Author
Benjamin Gardner is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, USA where he teaches global studies, cultural studies, and environmental studies. He is also the chair of the African Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.


Book Information
ISBN 9780820345086
Author Benjamin Gardner
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint University of Georgia Press
Publisher University of Georgia Press
Weight(grams) 333g