Abstract

Conservation interventions have historically been guided by Western ontologies and epistemologies that separate humans from nature. Reflecting this, the natural sciences have been dominant in decision-making related to conservation, while the social sciences have been ignored or used only when 'human problems' arise. Nonetheless, fluctuating management paradigms are currently fostering a more prominent and change-oriented role for the social sciences in conservation. Through a political ecology lens, this article explores how knowledge hierarchies are constructed and how different knowledges are negotiated and contested within communities of conservation practitioners in the Manu National Park. Despite Indigenous presence, this conservation space in Peruvian Amazonia is often seen and treated by natural scientists as a people-less wilderness. Critically analyzing online interviews and archival material, and my experience as a conservation practitioner in Manu, my research reveals the complex politics of the integration of the social sciences into conservation management. Conservation practitioners and organizations have sought to instrumentalize social science tools to reproduce and legitimate wilderness narratives and representations of Indigenous people as an environmental threat. In parallel, conservation practitioners in positions of power have reacted with fragility and hostility to critical social science research that challenges these colonial notions, seeking to exclude it from decision-making processes. Reflexive conservation practitioners critical of wilderness discourses and knowledge hierarchies could make some space for new ways of doing conservation, but their influence on conservation organizations is still limited.

Keywords: conservation social science, conservation practitioners, critical social science, political ecology of knowledge, environmental management

How to Cite:

Salazar Moreira, E., (2026) “Making knowledge and making wilderness: The politics of introducing the social sciences into conservation in the Manu National Park, Perú”, Journal of Political Ecology 33(1): 8411. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.8411