sletto - knowledge that counts - gran sabana-venezuela

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The Knowledge that Counts: Institutional

Identities, Policy Science, and the Conflict Over

Fire Management in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela

BJRN SLETTO *

University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA

Summary. The cultures of environmental planning agencies shape institutional identities andmanagement interventions. Central to such institutional cultures is knowledge production, which

is shaped by politicaleconomic processes, dominant narratives and institutional desires to produceconservation landscapes. Through knowledge production, certain scientific knowledge and dataare appropriated, while others are excluded. In the case of fire management in the Gran Sabana,Venezuela, a project of policy science draws on selected scientific knowledge and emphasizes remotesensing and quantitative analysis at the expense of indigenous knowledge and prescriptive burningpractices. This policy science emerges from an institutional culture that favors fire suppression as ameans to recreate a desired, imaginary forest.2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Key words Latin America, Venezuela, conservation management, protected areas, knowledgeproduction, indigenous people

1. INTRODUCTION

In the Global South, protected area manage-ment is intimately linked with national develop-ment strategies and often implicated in conflictbetween indigenous peoples, state agencies, andcommercial interests. Because of these linksbetween politics, development and the environ-ment, indigenous people and landscapes in theSouth have become objects of hegemonicenvironmentalist discourse and action (see

e.g., Adger et al., 2001; Crush, 1995; Dalby,1998; Dryzek, 1997; Escobar, 1995; Ferguson,1995; Gupta, 1998; Mitchell, 1995). These envi-ronmentalist discourses are shaped by hege-monic narratives of landscapes, people, andNature, which in turn are reproduced throughthe privileging of some knowledge over oth-ers in the development project (see e.g., Agra-wal, 1995; Moore, 1996; Nygren, 1999).

Here I propose to explore some of the ways inwhich global environmental discourses articu-late with local systems of knowledge produc-tion, which in turn shape planning practices thattend to marginalize indigenous knowledge,sometimes at the expense of conservation objec-

*This article is based on dissertation research conducted

in JulyAugust 2000, JulyAugust 2001, FebruaryApril

2002, OctoberDecember 2002, and April 200304 with

a Fulbright-Hays dissertation award; a Peace Studies

Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation (adminis-

tered by the Peace Studies Program, Cornell University);

an NSF Geography doctoral dissertation research award

(No. 0221324); and funding from the Mario Einaudi

Center for International Studies and the Department ofCity and Regional Planning, Cornell University. Logis-

tical assistance and research permits were provided by

Instituto Nacional de Parques (INPARQUES), Electri-

ficacion del Caron (EDELCA), Corporacion Venezol-

ana de Guayana (CVG), the Department of

Anthropology at the Instituto Venezolano de Investi-

gaciones Cientficas (IVIC); and the community of Ku-

marakapay, the Gran Sabana. This article was written

while a 2005/06 Mellon Graduate Fellow at the Cornell

Society for the Humanities. The author wishes to thank

Dr. Barbara Lynch, Dr. John Forester, Dr. Stanford

Zent, and four anonymous reviewers. All omissions and

errors are those of the author alone. Final revisionaccepted: February 22, 2008.

WorldDevelopment Vol. 36, No. 10, pp. 19381955, 2008 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

0305-750X/$ - see front matter

www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddevdoi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2008.02.008

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tives. In particular, I seek to examine how devel-opment and conservation agencies appropriateand shape scientific and local knowledge inways that are sometimes contradictory, incon-sistent, and ironical, and which leads to every-

day, situated practices that are less rationalthat what is presented in agency representationssuch as annual reports, Web sites, and so on. 1 Iargue that production and representation ofknowledge is closely associated with institu-tional identities, which are shaped by global dis-courses of environmental degradation and risk,but also, or perhaps even more so, emerge fromhomespun, institutional narratives and imagi-naries of local landscapes and peoples. Ulti-mately, certain knowledges are privileged inplanning institutions because they fit the rules

of what counts as true knowledge production(Foucault, 1972, 1980).

I suggest that the formation of such institu-tional identities and privileging of certainknowledge are in part shaped by desire: de-sires to produce certain landscape formations,to create formalized systems of environmentalmanagement, and to know the truth. I drawhere on Lacanian psychoanalysis (1978, 1995)to suggest that desires are important determi-nants in institutional processes of place-mak-ing, that is, the social and material production

of space occurring through the fantasies ofplanning institutions and the material resources(economic power, exclusive right to violence,and equipment) of state agencies. Hence on abroader level, these desires to know are inti-mately implicated with relations of dominationand resistance, since knowledge is never di-vorced from the workings of power. Ulti-mately, the issue here is the ways in whichcertain knowledges and modes of research leadto practices that, more often than not, derivefrom institutional narratives and desires rather

than the most rational models of develop-ment and conservation management (seeGun-der, 2003, 2004; Hillier, 2003; Hillier &Gunder, 2003 for other Lacanian interpreta-tions of planning practice).

In the following pages, I draw on these criti-cal perspectives on institutional identities,knowledge production and planning practiceto examine a conflict between state and indige-nous fire management in the Gran Sabana, agrasslandforest mosaic which extends for18,000 km2 through southeastern Venezuela

and into Brazil and Guyana. I suggest that pro-cesses of identity formation and knowledgeproduction have reproduced an unremitting

conflict between the state agency Electrificaciondel Caron (EDELCA) and the indigenous Pe-mon, a Carib Indian group that numbers about20,000. State fire management is characterizedby misunderstandings and deprecation of Pe-

mon fire management, resulting in practicesthat favor intensive surveillance techniques, firesuppression strategies, and attempts to discour-age indigenous prescriptive burning which may,ironically, serve to prevent the occurrence ofextensive and destructive fires.

I begin by positioning my analysis in a broad-er context of social theory, drawing in part onthe Foucaultian concepts of surveillance andwill to truth (in the sense that truth is theoutcome of contests to define the rules of properknowledge production), but modifying this con-

structivist approach with Lacanian 2

insights ondesire and subject formation (Lacan, 1978,1995). Next I review the links between develop-ment, conservation and knowledge productionin the Gran Sabana, before I proceed with anexamination of EDELCAs policy science. Isuggest that EDELCAs approach to data col-lection and analysis is shaped in part by globaldiscourse formations, in part by politicaleco-nomic realities, and in part by a dominant bodyof Venezuelan literature on fire ecologybutalso by desires and institutional identities that

derive from local constructions and narra-tives. Then I discuss the prescriptive burningpractices of the Pemon, drawing parallels withparticipatory management approaches basedon indigenous knowledge in Australia andSouth Africa. This allows me to explicate someof the ways in which EDELCAs policy sciencecould be reoriented toward more participatoryand effective fire management.

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:

DESIRE, IDENTITY, AND KNOWLEDGEPRODUCTION

To think critically about the politics of envi-ronmental planning, I view domination asfacilitated through mechanisms that Foucaultcalls small-scale, regional, dispersed Panoptic-isms, or modes of surveillance (Foucault,1980). The hegemonic knowledge productioneffected through these small-scale modes of sur-veillancesuch as the local data producedby EDELCAis shaped by institutional identi-

ties and narratives of place and people, sub-merges or appropriates local knowledges,and makes of real places (whether they be

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tropical forests or city parks) metaphorical ter-rains of domination and resistance. Localknowledge is thus a mode of learning that isoften disempowered in development and con-servation projects, simply because such subju-

gated knowledge loses the battle over therules according to which the true and the falseare separated and specific effects of power at-tached to the true (Foucault, 1980, p. 132;see alsoGutting, 1989). In the case of the GranSabana, the unwritten rules that determinewhat is true about the natural environmentand human ecologies emerge from the privi-leged status of certain scientific representationsand data within EDELCA agency culture (seeAgrawal, 1995; Mignolo, 2000; Nader, 1996;Purcell, 1998; Sillitoe, 1998for more on local

and scientific knowledge systems).Ultimately, then, at issue here is not what

data, what modes of data collection, and whatforms of data analysis are more valid froman objective, environmental management per-spective. Instead, the question is: Why are cer-tain forms of knowledge production believedto be and represented asmore valid within a cer-tain environmental, historical, politicaleco-nomic and institutional context? I turn here tothe psychoanalytic theory inspired by Lacan,where knowledge is understood as discourse

constructions that are linked with subject struc-ture and thus serve as foundational elements inprocesses of identity formation (Alcorn, 1994,p. 35; Gunder, 2004, p. 300). Different knowl-edges draw on iconic master signifiers thatsymbolize what is common-sensically acceptedas true and desirable (such as democracy,development, and sustainability), whichmeans knowledges are intimately entangledwith subjective understandings of what isgood or bad (Fink, 1995, p. 130, 1999;Gunder, 2004, p. 305).

I suggest that in the case of the Gran Sabana,forest has assumed the role as a master signi-fier in EDELCAs institutional narratives.Since a master signifier secures a whole fieldand, by embodying it, effectuates its identity(Zizek, 2002, p. 88), the idea of forest conserva-tion has become a common-sensical, desirablequality. Ultimately, the desire for a forested,scientifically controlled landscape shapesEDELCAs project of knowledge productionand unwittingly serves to reproduce institu-tional narratives of the Pemon as destructive

and irrational. Since desire is implicated in bothwanting to be and also wanting to know(Bracher, 1993, p. 19, 1994), the identities of

EDELCA agents are closely associated withthe desire to recreate a mythical forest of thepast, which in turn makes it seem sensible andacceptable to use institutionally accepted tech-nologies to collect information.

This desire to know not only influencesinstitutional identities, it also leads to the pro-duction of imaginary, social boundaries (Fou-cault, 1977; Major-Poetzl, 1983; see alsoPhilo, 2000; Pile, 1996). EDELCAs desire forcertain data, collected through certain means,unavoidably leads to social processes of bound-ary-making, which construct the Pemon assubjects that are not rational, not behavingappropriately, not modern, and rhetoricallyplace them outside the socially constructedspace of rational environmental planning and

decision-making. From a Foucaultian perspec-tive on power/knowledge, the Pemon are sym-bolically excluded from the conservation spacethat is the Gran Sabana because their subju-gated knowledge has lost the battle for truthand thus has less validity than that of EDEL-CA.

Ironically, however, EDELCA must confrontthe limits of power and its contradictory conse-quences: occasional attempts to engage indige-nous people in participatory approaches tofire management have met with opposition

within the agency, and have not been consistentor very long-lived. In part because of the perva-sive, institutional narratives of forest destruc-tion, EDELCA has maintained its emphasison fire suppression and environmental educa-tion, which in turn has fomented resistanceand failed to reduce indigenous fire use. Suchindigenous resistance to EDELCAs fire man-agement is possible because EDELCAs desirefor knowledge is built on an unstable, Lacaniandiscourse of policy science that can be resistedby the Pemon and contradicted within the

agency itself (seeAlcorn, 1994, p. 27, 30; Fink,1995, p. 138), and also because EDELCAs sur-veillance (intended in part to produce theagencys knowledge) has its limits both in spaceand in time (seeRobinson, 2000; Sawicki, 1989,1994). 3

3. ELECTRICITY, CONSERVATION, ANDKNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN THE

GRAN SABANA

The strategic and economic interests of theVenezuelan state, which sees in its southernfrontier a vast, empty space with huge

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development potential, have long influenced thecharacter of scientific research in the Gran Sa-bana (see e.g., Coronil, 1997; Miranda et al.,1998; Mujica, 1984). In 1960, the parastatalCorporacion Venezolana de Guayana (CVG)

was formed to spearhead the development ofthe Guayana, the entire southern half of Vene-zuela, including the Gran Sabana, and initiatedan extensive research program to map the geog-raphy, vegetation, fauna, and ethnology of thisfrontier region. In 1969, the regional develop-ment agency Comision para el Desarrollo delSur (CODESUR) was charged with mapping,conducting forest inventories, and promotingdevelopment of the Guayana (Mujica, 1984,pp. 37, 81). In 1994, CODESUR was replacedby PRODESSUR, which follows a develop-

ment plan that calls for a 15% populationincrease through a network of frontier settle-ments in unoccupied indigenous territory;accelerated natural resource exploitation,including intensified mining, oil exploration,agriculture, and forestry; and extensive infra-structure development (Miranda et al., 1998).

EDELCA was established in 1963 to developthe hydroelectric potentials of the Caron, thelargest river downstream from the Gran Saba-na. Today, EDELCA produces 75% of thecountrys hydroelectric power through a series

of dams and power stations, including Maca-gua I (the first dam in the Caron basin, com-pleted in 1959), Macagua II, Guri, andCarucahi (EDELCA, 2000; Perez, 1999, p.104). Electricity has thus long represented acountry-building and development tool parexcellence, both in material and in symbolicterms. The inauguration of Macagua I, whichtook place only one year after the fall of the lastdictator, Marcos Perez Jimenez, was promotedas a public spectacle and hailed as the birth ofthe new Venezuela (Perez, 1999, p. 17; see

also Coronil, 1997). Electricity has reducedVenezuelas dependence on hydrocarbons (in2000, the power produced by EDELCAshydroelectric dams represented a value equalto 11% of oil exports (Perez, 1999, p. 104)),and has become a crucial factor in regionalintegration in northern South America (Guil-len, 2002).

Because of the economic importance of theGuri and Macagua dams, environmental pro-tection of the 95,000 km2 Caron watershed iscrucial for the states project of capital accumu-

lation. Hydroelectric energy from the Caronis the foundation for the development of thegreat industrial complex in Guayana, said

the then-director of the National Park Service(INPARQUES), Jose Rafael Garca in 1982.Partly because of the significance of Guri asthe countrys principal source of hydroener-gy and also because of its geopolitically stra-

tegic location, near the borders of Guyana andBrazil, the Caron and Gran Sabana wereincorporated in Canaima National Park in1962 (Figure 1) (Comision Interinstitucional,1989, p. 1). In the early 1980s, EDELCA as-sumed responsibility for fire management inthe Upper Caron watershed, specifically toprotect gallery forests in order to avoid erosionand sedimentation of Guri (Figure 2)(Garca,1994).

These important links between economicdevelopment and environmental conservation

inform scientific research in the Gran Sabana.This body of literature, in turn, has been selec-tively appropriated in EDELCAs institutionalculture to support narratives of indigenousdestructiveness and forest loss. I am referringhere to writers likeDezzeo (1994), Dezzeo andChacon (2005), Fernandez (1984, 1987), Folster(1986, 1995), Hernandez (1987), Huber (1995,chap. 1) and Worbes (1999), who have madeseminal contributions to our understandings offire ecology in the Gran Sabana based on exten-sive and rigorous field research, but whose work

has been used to support a fire managementmodel that overlooks situated practices. Specif-ically, these authors suggested that the Gran Sa-bana was once more extensively forested andthat anthropogenic burning is a primary explan-atory factor for the current grasslandforestmosaic. Although these suggestions are con-tested and expressed with contingencies, theyhave been transformed into sweeping truthsin EDELCA narratives and now form the basisfor the agencys policy science.

For instance, Fernandez writes that it is

obvious that the Gran Sabana is experiencinga process of forest degradation because onecan see fires appearing every year, and also be-cause of the historical evidence of extensive firesin 1939/40 and 1926 (Fernandez, 1987). Paly-nologist Martin Worbes argues that (forestpatches) constitute partial remnants of matureforests and severely disturbed forests; bothforms of vegetation appear surrounded for themost part by savanna. The presence of carbon-ized (burned) trees in the area around these for-ests attests to the existence in the past of a more

extensive forest cover (Worbes, 1999, pp. 101102). Folster and Dezzeo argue that it is quiteprobable that the extensive savannas also



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resulted from a similar process (of burning). Inthat case, the small forest islands distributedwithin these savannas could be considered re-licts of a forest cover that originally was moreclosed (Folster & Dezzeo, 1994, p. 147). Andmost recently, Dezzeo and Chacon (2005, p.

344) suggested that the Gran Sabana resultedfrom a conversion of large forested areas . . .associated with forest fires without intentionalconversion by the sparse human population.

Indeed, indigenous elders and other long-time residents agree (and see Kingsbury,1999, 2001): in areas of increasing populateddensity, primary forest cover has declined dur-ing the last two decades, becoming replaced bysecondary forest and to some extent savanna.But data are lacking to support the sweepingcontention that forests are disappearing in theGran Sabana, or to verify the extent of forestdegradation caused by the penetration of sa-vanna fires into forest patches. Forest cover

has not decreased everywhere in the GranSabanain fact, forests appear to be slowlyexpanding in some areas (Sletto, 2006)andrevisionist analyses indicate that the great firesof decades past, frequently used as examples ofPemon irrationality, may in fact have been

accidentally started by European explorers(Rodrguez, 2004). Also, indigenous landscapeconversion needs to be placed in a historicalcontext: penetration of missionaries into Pe-mon lands, Venezuelan state development pro-

jects, and the coming of modernity with theconstruction of the Pan-American highwayand incentives to settle in permanent communi-ties, led to unsustainable population concentra-tions and thus inevitable overuse of limitedresources (see e.g., Butt-Colson, 1985; Comi-sion Interinstitucional, 1989, p. 22; Kingsbury,1999, 2001).

In addition, another body of research sug-gests that the Gran Sabana has never been

Figure 1. Ecological regions and national parks in Venezuela. Cartography: Bjorn Sletto. Source: USGS Global GIS;Instituto Nacional de Parques. Date: June 18, 2005.



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completely forested. In areas dominated bygrasses and herbaceous vegetation, the soilsderive from Precambrian sedimentary rocksand are highly acidic, poor in minerals andnutrients, and sandy with low water retentioncapacity (Huber & Zent, 1995, p. 39). In uplandhills with severely eroded ultisols, only grassesor deep-rooted shrubs can hold out againstthe droughts and occasional heavy rains (Hu-ber, 1995, pp. 1011, chap. 1; Huber & Febres,2000; Rull, 1992, p. 138; Urbina & Dieter Hei-nen, 1982). A mosaic of forest patches, grass-lands, and shrub lands has dominated the

Gran Sabana since the last Ice Age (Eden,1974; Rull, 1992; Schubert, 1995, 1986; Vander Hammen, 1974), contradicting the argu-ment that deforestation is exclusively a conse-quence of anthropogenic burning (Eden, 1974;see alsoBarse, 1990; Cruxent, 1971, 1972). Pal-ynological research suggests that floristic com-position has varied with climate change andnot with anthropogenic activity, and that dur-ing most of the Holocene the Gran Sabanawas characterized by climatic conditions thatencouraged savanna development (Rinaldi &Schubert, 1991).

Figure 2. EDELCAs operations area in the Upper Caron river basin. Inset: Canaima National Park. Cartography:Bjorn Sletto. Source: Instituto Nacional de Paeques. Date: June 18, 2005.



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Although this research reveals a great dealof uncertainty about the role of anthropogenicburning in the Gran Sabana, this is not re-flected in prevailing institutional representa-tions. Instead, fire managers and seasonal fire

fighters alike maintain that the forest-grass-lands mosaic is unnatural and primarilythe result of anthropogenic activity. In thewords of Boanerges Ramos Milan, chief ofEDELCAs environmental conservation:The Gran Sabana was a forest before. Thereare many areas in the Gran Sabana right now,where one can see there was forest, that therehad been continuous forests (Ramos, 2003,pers. int.). And among fire fighters at the lo-cal level in San Ignacio, the idea of forestloss is repeated as truth. Ambrosio Pinzon,

a veteran fire fighter in his 50s, said once:In 2030 years, this (the Gran Sabana) willbe like a desert. And in the words of theyounger fire fighter Nestor Ayuso: Thismight become a desert in the future. We wontbe calling it the Gran Sabana, but the Gran(Great) Desert.

Ultimately, the issue is not whether it istrue that the Gran Sabana once was a for-est, nor how likely it is that the Gran Sabanawill become a desert. Instead, I suggest thatselected representations in a specific body of

scientific literature have been incorporatedinto a narrative of indigenous destructivenessand forest loss, in part to simplify a complexsituation and to satisfy the desires for order,for protection, and for forest. These nar-ratives, in turn, provide the weight of scientificrationality to EDELCAs policy science andapproaches to fire management, and in sodoing, foreclose alternative modes of knowl-edge production.

4. STATE FIRE MANAGEMENT,TECHNOLOGY, AND PRIVILEGED

WAYS OF KNOWING

From a post-structuralist perspective onnatural resource management, EDELCAs firemanagement project is situated in a dangerdiscourse of fire (seeDalby, 1999) intimatelyassociated with two tropes that shape envi-ronmentalism in the Global South: deforesta-tion and desertification. Since fire is framedas a driving force of both deforestation and

desertification, fire management becomesshaped by the common-sensical imperativesof protecting forest and avoiding savan-

nization. This has led to the privileging ofmanagement models that emphasize restrictiveinterventions to limit fire use by indigenouspeoples, that overlook structural reasons formisuses of fire, and that emphasize the pri-

macy of spatial and quantitative technologies(Adger et al., 2001; Harwell, 2000; Pyne,1991, 1995, 1996).

The advent of remote sensing, in particular,has fundamentally influenced research on fireecologies and allowed for representations thatoverwhelm with their technological wizardry(Pyne, 1991, 1995, 1996). Dominant modelsof fire control now combine remote sensingimagery with quantitative analysis in waysthat may devalue the ecological benefits of di-verse, situated practices (Bassett & Bi Zueli,

2000; Fairhead & Leach, 1996, 1998; Leach& Fairhead, 2000a, 2000b, 2002; Turner,2003; Turner & Taylor, 2003). Although theservices provided by institutions such as NA-SAs Fire Information for Resource Manage-ment System and the Global Fire MonitoringCentre (GFMC) will facilitate comprehensivemonitoring of fires, the pervasiveness of suchimagery might have the unintended conse-quence of devaluing the importance of local-level analyses of the complex causes and con-sequences of fire use. 4

In the case of EDELCA, this merging of newtechnology with hegemonic narratives of fireand risk has led to a privileging of quantitativeapproaches to fire management. Remote sens-ing analysis is increasingly seen as complemen-tary to such quantitative methods, especially asa means to persuade indigenous people of theneed for more rational fire management. Inthe words of Fransisco Zerpa, the chief of theenvironmental information section, if we hadremote sensing images for the past twentyyears, they (the Pemon) would see how much

forest has been lost. Thus remote sensing iseasily incorporated into EDELCAs pervasive,institutional narrative of the need for morescience. By more science fire managers typ-ically mean more quantitative data, rather thanmore local knowledge of indigenous firemanagement:

(The Pemon) need to see the scientific data (to be con-vinced they need to stop burning). This is for sure. Weall need more statistics to see what the problem reallyis. We want to see numbers showing how much forest

has been lost. We want to have data to conduct a spa-tial analysis (of remote sensing images). This is thedirection we need to go. We ought to have more exactscience (Ramos, 2003, pers. int.).



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The agency has in the recent years expandedits use of Geographic Information Systems(GIS) with the goal of producing exactly thistype of quantitative spatial analysis. Althoughthe agencys GIS system is still primarily used

as a data collection, management, and displaytool, agency staffers envision that this powerfultechnology will take center stage in a moresophisticated modeling approaches to fire man-agement:

(The problem of burning will be resolved by) design-ing and implementing an information system thatserves to characterize the occurrence and severity ofthe fires in the watershed. The system will allow fortemporal and spatial statistical evaluation of fireevents and will constitute a support tool for deci-sion-making at the PCIV (Zerpa, Acevedo, Ablan,

& Garca, 2003, p. 2).

In the following pages, I analyze the data col-lection strategies and methods that provide thequantitative basis for the agencys GIS analysis.The question here is not whether scientific orlocal knowledge is better; nor do I seek todownplay the potentially important contribu-tions of GIS and remote sensing for more effec-tive fire management in the Gran Sabana.Instead, at issue here is the role of agency cul-ture in shaping knowledge production. Specifi-cally, I suggest that EDELCA collects,aggregates, categorizes, and ultimately repre-sents data of fire occurrences in ways thatreproduce and bolster agency narratives of thedestructiveness of indigenous burning, ulti-mately providing rhetorical support for the de-sire to protect the Gran Sabana and recreate

a mythical forest. Because of this, the agencymay foreclose possibilities for alternativeknowledge production based on indigenousknowledge and ultimately hamper future, moreparticipatory environmental management ap-

proaches.

5. EDELCA POLICY SCIENCE, DESIRE,AND INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITIES

The heart of EDELCAs operations in theGran Sabana is the fire fighting station inthe village of San Ignacio, which is staffedby two Venezuelan fire managers and 25 firefighters working in the dry season, betweenJanuary and May. The agencys fire fightingoperations rely on three watch towers to spotfires (see Figure 2), a helicopter to ferry firefighters to the site of fires, a small fleet of4 4 Toyotas, and radios and modern firefighting equipment. The agency also pursuesan environmental education program to dis-suade the Pemon from burning, but its failureto successfully engage with Pemon elders inparticipatory approaches have led to tenseand conflictual relations between EDELCAand the Pemon. Despite the 20-year presenceof the fire suppression program, the Pemonburn as before (albeit a little less frequentlyin some areas than elsewhere because of reset-tlement, social change, and the influences ofEDELCA) and fire use remains integral totheir reproduction of indigenous identity (Slet-to, 2006) (Figure 3).

Detected and Combated Fires, Gran Sabana,

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1992

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

Year

No.offires

Detected Fires

Combated Fires

Venezuela

Figure 3. Fires detected and combated from 1992 to 2003 in EDELCAs operations area in the Upper Caroni riverbasin. Source: EDELCA, Puerto Ordaz.



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EDELCAs and the Pemons fire manage-ment system differ fundamentally in one, keyrespect: while the Pemon conduct controlledburning to reduce fuel loads in grasslands,EDELCA focuses on extinguishing grasslands

fires, especially those considered threateningto forest patches in priority areas (Fernan-dez, 1984, 1987). When a watch tower reportsa threatening fire, fire managers in San Ignaciodispatch fire fighters via helicopter to the site ofthe fire. Whether a given fire needed to be com-bated, the fire managers in San Ignacio recordevery helicopter response to fire observationsas a combated fire in the agencys GIS. 5

At the end of the year, the data on fires ob-served and combated are aggregated in a cen-tral database and presented in the form of

maps and tables. Because of the large number

of small, anthropogenic fires set over the courseof the entire fire season (the great majority offires in the Gran Sabana are anthropogenic inorigin and not the result of natural causes suchas lightning), these maps represent the Gran Sa-

bana as a landscape under siege from mis-guided, human activity (Figure 4). However,here I will focus less on questions of representa-tion. Instead, I seek to illuminate how EDEL-CAs approach to data collection andcategorization tends to frame 6 fire events inways that tacitly correspond with institutionalculture and desires.

A principal rhetorical strategy in this framingprocess is categorization: fires combated are al-ways classified by cause (causa) (Figure 5).These causes are illuminating both in what

story they tell and in what information they

Figure 4. Distribucion de incendios detectados por sector prioritario. Temporada 2003. From Informe Final delPrograma Control de Incendios de Vegetacion, Temporada 2003. Developed by Yajaira Maita, Edgar E. Rivas, andRafael A. Salas, July 2003, EDELCA, Puerto Ordaz.



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obscure. To begin, most fires are categorizedfrom a distance by fire fighters manning thewatch towers and only rarely based on directobservations. Also, the choice of the termcause instead of reason or purpose isrhetorically important. Cause carries a senseof passivity, as if fires are due to random anddestructive forces. This rhetorically places Pe-

mon burning within a realm of Nature andunreason. A term such as reason (razon) orpurpose (proposito) for the fire, however,would have carried a connotation of Westernrationality. It would have implied that firesare set purposefully for a reason and thatthis could potentially be a good reason.

In EDELCAs geographic information sys-tem, there are seven causes given for fires:agriculture, animal husbandry, forest, hunting,tradition, and intentional (agricultura,pecuaria,

forestal, cacera, tradicion, and intencional).

Thus two categories are chosen to representagriculture-related causesagricultureand animal husbandryand this despitethe fact that there are no farms in the Venezu-elan sense of the word and very little cattle rais-ing in the Gran Sabana. However, thesecategories support decades of indigenist policiesintended to covert indigenous people to agri-culturalists and effect their resettlement in smal-ler, more easily controlled areas (Galletti, 1980,p. 7; Mujica, 1984). The category hunting,meanwhile, accounts for a large portion of the

total fires set by the Pemon, and also a signifi-cant proportion of fires combated each year.This is also a cause of fire that most raises the

ire of fire managers and EDELCA scientists,who often commented in interviews conductedin 200204 that hunting is unnecessary in anage when Pemon could move to moderncommunities and become responsible citizens.By representing hunting as a passive cause,the category is bounded within the realm ofthe irrational, thus reproducing the boundary-

making that puts the Pemon out-of-place inthe Gran Sabana as people who reject the inev-itable coming of modern development.

The two remaining categoriestraditionand intentionalare the most rhetoricallypowerful signifiers because of the ways in whichthey articulate with narratives of indigeneity. InEDELCAs institutional narratives, Pemon fireuse is typically referred to as the result of indig-enous tradition: In the words of FranciscoZerpa:

According to the statistics from the fire control pro-gram,the majority of fires are due to indigenous tradi-tion.Especially the making of gardens, when they gohunting and fishing, they burn to define their trailsand to inform communities where they are. Im notsure about this but (I think) they also burn as a reli-gious act for feast days. . .Im not sure. Also becauseof the presence of bugs, mosquitoes, one way of get-ting rid of them is by fire. And to clean trails. Thoseare the principal causes of fire in the Gran Sabana(Zerpa, 2003, my emphasis).

In EDELCA narratives, Pemon tradition isnot essentialized as a set of primordial beliefs

and practices that originated in the Gran Saba-na, but instead constructed as something for-eign and invented. Although Pemon culture in

Number combated Year Fire number Detection number Date Priority sector

Sub-watershed Intensity Cause Severity Area total burnedTime receiving

call

Time of departureTime arriving

at fire

Time beginning

combat

Time finished

combat

Time return to

stationTotal time spent

Latitude Longitude Type of fire State of fire

Number combated Year Detection number Date Time of notification Priority sector

Sub-watershed State of fire

Classification of Combated Fires

Classification of Detected Fires

EDELCA Fire Program Data Table

Figure 5. Classification system used to categorize fires combated and detected in EDELCAs operations area in theupper Caroni river basin. Source: EDELCA, Puerto Ordaz.



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the Gran Sabana most likely originated beforethe arrival of Europeans (Cousins, 1991; Mans-utti, 1981; Thomas, 1982; Urbina, 1979),agency officials typically represent the Pemonas recent immigrants who are pursuing land-

use practices that originated on the forestedslopes of Guyana and which are unsustainablein the sparse savanna environment in the GranSabana. This construction allows for the fram-ing of indigenous burning as pre-modern, butalso unbecoming the Gran Sabana.

What remains is the category intentional,which has the rhetorical consequence of furtherdelegitimizing Pemon burning practices. It wasdifficult to obtain a clear definition of this cate-gory, since of course every fire is set intention-ally: there is an obvious contradiction between

the passivity inherent in cause and the agencyof intentional. This category is generally usedfor fires set for reasons that from the perspectiveof EDELCA cannot be assigned to tradition.Intentional fires thus include fires set for noother reason than for the sake of burning(quemar por quemar) and fires set againstEDELCA (quemar contra EDELCA). Bothpractices are frustrating to fire fighters and per-sonnel in Puerto Ordaz, and also to elder indig-enous fire managers (Sletto, 2006). Partlybecause of the uncertainty associated with this

category, few fires are defined as intentional.Ultimately, I suggest that the categories used

in the fire reporting system serve to bolster theemphasis on culture instead of environ-ment in institutional narratives about Pemonfire use. When asked in a survey what theythought were the reasons for the Pemons useof fire, 70% of fire managers, policy scientistsand administration officials in Puerto Ordazsuggested that Pemon burn for cultural rea-sons. Meanwhile, only 23.5% of fire fighters inSan Ignacio listed culture as the reason why

Pemon burn. These numbers reflect subtle differ-ences in the attitudes toward indigenous fire use.Survey respondents in Puerto Ordaz, located farfrom everyday fire management in the Gran Sa-bana, may be more likely to support institu-tional narratives of the Pemon as destructiveand recalcitrant. However, these differences donot matter significantly in what the survey tellsus about institutional culture: not a singlerespondent in Puerto Ordaz or in San Ignaciosuggested that the Pemon burn as a means ofmanagingthe environment in the Gran Sabana.

Since EDELCA narratives foreclose any possi-bility for the existence of a rational, indige-nous fire regime, the agency is also at risk of

eliminating ecologically beneficial, indigenousburning practices from its project of knowledgeproduction.

6. INDIGENOUS FIRE MANAGEMENTAND ALTERNATIVE KNOWLEDGE

PRODUCTION

Pemon burn the savanna for a host of rea-sons: to communicate (e.g., using smoke signalsto announce their arrival in a village), toclean trails (using fire to remove tall grassesand snakes, bugs, and scorpions), to hunt(burning grasses to encourage deer to leavetheir forest hideouts), and to remove fire-pronegrasses from the outskirts of villages. The Pe-

mon see the mosaic of grasslands and forestpatches as the natural state of the Gran Sa-bana: the grasslands provide opportunities formovement and a sort of canvas to imprint theirculture through burning; the forests furnish asource of subsistence through hunting, fishing,and gardening. Unlike state agents, Pemon donot imagine forest as desirable per se, nordo they seek to produce a forested landscape.Instead, they wish to protect the existing forestpatches for reasons of subsistence.

A cause of particular tension between Pemon

and EDELCA is indigenous practices of pre-scriptive burning in grasslandforest bound-aries. Pemon follow principles of patchburning; that is, they light frequent, slow-burn-ing surface fires, which result in a mosaic ofsmall (between 20 and 50 m2) grass patches indifferent stages of regrowth. When the firereaches a relatively green and damp grasspatch, it will stop from lack of fuel. The Pemonsay that fire (Apok) knows when to stop burn-ing (Perez, 2002). The key to indigenous pre-ventative fire management is thus to prevent

annual grasses from accumulating for severalgenerations and reach the stage ofauruta, thatis, tall and yellowing grasses that burn withhigh heat and might escape control (see Bid-dulph & Kellman, 1998for the potential bene-fits of Pemon prescriptive burning).

Such preventative burning is particularlyimportant in savanna edges; that is, what thePemon call the tureta kata, the last few metersof the grasslands before the beginning of theforestgrasslands ecotone. Although the turetakata is not considered a separate spatial

category in EDELCAs fire managementsystem, it is nevertheless a functionallandscapeunit. The dense vegetation in these grasslands



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communities may either facilitate or prevent fireentry into forest patches: high fuel levels may al-low slow-burning surface fires to reach danger-ous speeds and high temperatures; low fuellevels will cause surface fires to stop. The Pemon

therefore burn savanna edges in the late rainyseason, between August and December, whenthe forest litter and woody vegetation is toodamp to catch fire. The principle behind thisburning so that fires dont enter forests (apokwomunamai tureta tak) is thus to reduce the levelof combustible grasses near forests and to forma fire break (apok wakonin). We burn part bypart (yanupu tupata kene) . . . so that the firestops when it reaches an area that has beenburned. If we dont burn, the grass would buildup and the fire might enter into the forest and

then damage nature (Romero, 2002). 7

Because of the documented benefits of suchcontrolled burning to reduce fuel loads in sa-vanna environments, some natural resourceagencies have incorporated indigenous burningstrategies into state fire management, particu-larly in Australia and South Africa. The com-plex pattern of early dry season burning ofmicrohabitats practiced by aboriginal Austra-lian now forms the cornerstone of current firemanagement policies in the Northern Territory(Cooke, 2000, p. 104; Williams, Gill, & Moore,

2000, p 94; Williams et al., 1998), with Euro-Australian landscape managers insisting thatfire is an essential feature of all savanna envi-ronments (Whitehead et al., 2003, p. 415; seealso Haynes, 1978, 1985; Lewis, 1986, 1989).Because of local variation in moisture andtopography, the result of such early fires is apatchy, fine-grained mosaic of burned and un-burned grasses (Whitehead et al., 2003, p.416), which serves to protect certain vegetationpatches and to enrich biodiversity (Braithwaite,1996; Laris, 2002; Mistry, 2005; see alsoLaris

(2002, 2004) on similar patch-mosaic fire re-gimes in Mali). Landscapes that have been pre-vented from burning suffer from invasions ofwoody species or exotics (Russell-Smith et al.,2000, p. 95) and are more at risk from cata-strophic fires, such as those that ravaged theNorthern Territory in the 1960s following theimposition of bans on burning.

In South Africa, landscape managers havealso developed approaches to fire managementsimilar to the Australian model: patch burningto reduce fuel loads, create mosaic patterns,

and facilitate landscape heterogeneity. This isa means to reproduce indigenous patterns of sa-vanna burning, which probably harkens back

thousands of years (Edwards, 1984; Hall,1984, p. 43; see also Hall, 1984, p. 43on the!Kung;Hall, 1984, p. 45on the San andKull,2002a, 2002b, 2002c on the Malagasy). InSouth Africa, land managers maintain that reg-

ular burning is not merely acceptable, it isessential to maintain a healthy ecosystem. Theaccumulation of organic material hampersgrowth and decreases plant vigor in grasslandsecosystems (Everson, Everson, & Tainton,1988), while regular patch burning promoteslandscape heterogeneity by increasing patchsizes, size variability, and shape complexityand proximity (Hudak, Fairbanks, & Brockett,2004). This means that the issue in South Africais not whether fires should or should not be al-lowed. Rather, the challenge is to develop a

system of preventative burning that is appropri-ate given 21st century ecological, cultural, andpoliticaleconomic realities (Bond & Archi-bald, 2003).

Ultimately, the question is, why does EDEL-CAs policy science and fire management prac-tices divert to such a degree from the modelsdeveloped in similar savanna environmentselsewhere? Part of the explanation lies in theways in which institutional cultures reflectdevelopment imperatives, and in how institu-tional cultures are supported by desires and

narratives of people and place. This is to say,EDELCA is not the only fire managementagency in the Global South that privileges firesuppression: while South African agencies areincorporating controlled burning strategies,forest services in Francophone African coun-tries such as Mali and Madagascar tend to rep-resent smallholder fire use as a cause ofdesertification (Kull, 2002b, 2002c; Laris,2002, 2004). Also, as in the case of other stateinstitutions, fire management agencies are notmonolithic entities but social spaces character-

ized by contested priorities and narratives. Inthe case of EDELCA, some officials do indeedsee environmental benefits in Pemon patchburning, but they constitute a small minorityin the agency.

Eduardo Gomez, EDELCAs project direc-tor and manager of the fire program from1990 to 1996, once proposed that EDELCA de-velop a prescribed burn program in collabora-tion with Pemon, but this was not wellreceived, he explained in an interview. Theargument was that it would not be effective,

but this is not the case at all, according to Go-mez. I think this would be an effective solu-tion. We could co-manage quite well with the



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Pemon, because they already use this technique(of prescribed burning). From Gomez per-spective, it does indeed make sense to reducefuel loads in order to protect forest patches:

Certainly, when there is a large fuel load, it needs tobe reduced. The Pemon have a management vision,and this vision is prescribed burning: to reduce thefuel load so that when a fire of great proportion ar-rives, there is not enough combustible materials. Ifthey didnt burn the Gran Sabana, the fires wouldbe spectacular (Go mez, 2003, pers. int.).

To Gomez, then, Pemon knowledge couldform the foundation for an alternative projectof knowledge production, leading to fire man-agement that is more participatory and fromhis point of view, more effective. His positionis supported by practice and theory developedby fire ecologists and landscape managers else-where; in fact, participatory fire managementbased on principles of controlled burning con-stitutes a growing body of scientific literature.The question is: given his relatively high posi-tion in the agency and his status as a former firemanager in the Gran Sabana, why doesnt hisperspective carry more weight? Part of theexplanation lies in the selective appropriationand representation by EDELCA policy scien-tists, administrators, and fire managers of a cer-tain body of literature on fire ecologies in theGran Sabana.

7. DISCUSSION

I have suggested that agency narratives areshaped by a desire for a landscape that is ratio-nally managed, orderly, and free from the sup-posedly irrational burning practices of thePemon. These narratives draw on a body of lit-erature that represents the Gran Sabana as avulnerable landscape threatened by anthropo-

genic burning, both through its framing of thefire problem and through its selection andpresentation of data. Although a great deal ofuncertainty remains about the role of anthro-pogenic burning in the Gran Sabana, this land-scape has been produced as a lost forestthrough whatLatour (1986) calls a process ofconstructing order, whereby policy scientistsrender alternative interpretations of scientificdata less plausible. The disorderly under-standings of the role of anthropogenic fire havebeen simplified to construct an orderly, win-ning explanation for the current state of theGran Sabana: the grasslands have been createdby indigenous burning and continued burning

will result in savannization (Latour, 1986, pp.3339). In a Lacanian sense, forest and des-ert have become desired and dreaded catego-ries, respectively, which shape institutionalidentities, forging institutional narratives that

exclude the Pemon from the realm of the ra-tional, and serving as powerful motivators forthe agencys policy science.

Because of these links between desires, insti-tutional narratives and a politicized Science(Latour, 2004), EDELCA has overlooked alter-native modes of knowledge production thatmay facilitate more effective, democratic firemanagement in the Gran Sabana. In particular,Pemon tenets and practices of controlled burn-ing deserve further attention by fire ecologiststo forge a preventative, rather than reactive ap-

proach to fire management (see Biddulph &Kellman, 1998). Instead, EDELCA fire manag-ers collect, categorize, and interpret data on fireoccurrences in ways that support the winningexplanation for forest loss in the Gran Saba-na. This ironical situationthis un-seeing ofknowledge and practices that many scientistsargue are beneficialis due to the institutionalnarratives of risk which underpin the agencysraison detre, but also the role that EDELCAplays in Venezuelas state-building project inthe Guayana. That is, in the interest of further-

ing state control, EDELCA provides to thestate a mass of information which its strategicposition can enable it to exploit (Foucault,1980, p. 75).

Thus the combat operations pursued byEDELCA are not simply directed againstfires but rather against the Pemon; or morespecifically, against the presumed irrationalityand destructiveness of the Pemon, which osten-sibly stem from their lack of proper knowledge.Ultimately, the conflict that has held the GranSabana in its grip for the past two decades is

not about fire, but about knowledge. Whatcounts in this war for truth (Foucault, 1980)is quantitative data, and those who have thegreatest political and economic means to pro-duce numbers and make them seem valuableare in a privileged position to define truth.

The case of the Gran Sabana is not unique,nor is it more importantper sethan other envi-ronmental conflicts, which as often as not arefueled by politicaleconomic imperatives andby identity formations shaped by institutionalcultures, desires, and powerful narratives of

place and people. The identities of environmen-tal planners are shaped in part by their institu-tional cultures, which just as inevitably are



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suffused with narratives of places and people,memories of what have been and fantasies ofwhat could be, and desires to know what todo to so that landscapes can be fashioned theway they should be. What behooves plan-

ning researchers is to carefully unpack such cul-tural constructions, track the ways in whichknowledge is read, appropriated and trans-

formed in agency cultures, and assess how themultiple, local Panopticisms of environmentalplanning agencies effect relations of powerand environmental realities on the ground, inthe actual geographies where planners can

never avoid but becoming embroiled in contestsof place-making.

NOTES

1. Institutional ethnography is a growing tradition inplanning research, where the focus is often the disjunc-tures between broader institutional planning goals andactual practice. One approach is the micropolitics ofpractice (see e.g.,Allmendinger, 1998; Forester, 1989),

another is the work of planning theorists who questionhow planning issues are framed and how planningpractices are influenced by narratives, knowledge sys-tems, politicaleconomic structures, and everyday nego-tiations. Examples of this approach are Flyvbjergs(1998, 2002) application of Foucaultian insights in hisexploration of rationality and power in Danish cityplanning and Fischlers (1998) use of Foucaultiangenealogies in explorations of zoning histories. Otherimportant writers in the related field of constructivistinstitutional analysis, which offers important critiquesof assumptions of rationality in environmental institu-

tions, are Espeland (1998), Ferguson (1995), Fischer(2000), Hajer (1995).

2. I draw on my interpretation of Lacanian thoughtprimarily on Bracher (1993, 1994), Fink (1995, 1999),Hillier (2003), Hillier and Gunder (2003), Gunder (2003,2004), Philo (2000)and Zizek (1993, 1999).

3. Although traditional conceptualizations of surveil-lance see it as a technique of power that works toenforce domination over bodies (McHoul & Grace,1993, p. 65; Merquior, 1985, p. 113), Robinson (2000)

emphasizes that surveillance is embodied; that is, madeoperational through specific individuals in specificplaces, and therefore by necessity is fractured andincomplete (Robinson, 2000, pp. 68, 7879; see alsoPrado, 2000, p. 73).

4. See http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/ and http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/intro/About.html.

5. To decide whether to send a squad, the firemanager in San Ignacio must perform a rapid evalu-ation of potential costs and risks. A helicopter response

is expensive and must be justified to superiors, whichputs pressure on the fire manager to represent each fireas threatening, regardless of any field observations tothe contrary. However, fire fighters told me they rarelyfight fires once they arrive in the field. Instead, they

typically stand by to ensure the fires do not spread outof control, or they stop fires that, in their estimation,would have died down on their own. These contentionsare unsupported by empirical data, of course; thepurpose here is not to speculate on the potentialdestructiveness of fires, but rather to note that suchalternative observations are not reflected in the agencyreporting system. From the point of view of firemanagers, this reporting system is justified because ofthe implied threat of these fires: there is certainly nonefarious intent on the part of fire managers to inflatethe numbers of fires. However, the unintended conse-

quence of this strategy of quantification is to providerhetorical support for continued fire suppression and tofurther solidify institutional narratives of indigenousdestructiveness.

6. The notion of framing is borrowed from ErvingGoffmans social theory, in which he describesframes as principles of organization which definethe meaning and significance of social events (Goff-man, 1997, p. xlvi).

7. Such prescriptive burning is also a common indig-

enous practice in grasslands environments elsewhere inLatin America. In Brazil, the Kayapo burn the cerrado(shrublands) for esthetic reasons, to reduce populationsof snakes and scorpions, to make walking easier(Anderson & Posey, 1989), and to modify soil propertiesand create fire breaks (Hecht & Posey, 1989). The Krahoalso burn the cerrado to eliminate pests and to create anesthetically clean landscape, but also to create firebreaks in order to protect desired vegetation (Mistry,2005). In Chile, the Araucano used prescribed burningto create and maintain stands of the monkey-puzzle tree(Araucaria araucana) (Aagesen, 2004).

http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/intro/About.htmlhttp://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/intro/About.htmlhttp://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/intro/About.htmlhttp://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/intro/About.htmlhttp://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/


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