CONSERVED SPACES, ANCESTRAL PLACES, conservation, history and identity among farm labourers in the Sundays River Valley, South Africa

212pp., colour illus., maps, paperback, Pietermaritzburg, 2014

Teresa Connor investigates three hundred years of social conflict over land in the frontier-like Sundays River Valley, an area of multiple displacements and the location of the extended Addo Elephant Park, to see whether residents have really benefited from models of co-management.

"South Africa is famous for its success in conserving wildlife, much of it in world-renowned national parks. Yet protected areas sometimes have to be carved out from settlements, and local communities often bear the costs. This is an outstanding analysis of these dilemmas, which looks in detail at the communities affected by the extension of Addo. In the process, Connor takes her readers into the social world of farmworkers, amongst the least studied and least understood groups in South Africa. This book is simultaneously a major contribution to debates about conservation and a vivid and eye-opening discussion of rural society." William Beinart, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford

Teresa Connor is affiliated with the Fort Hare Institute of Social and Economic Research in the Eastern Cape.