The orang utan is not an indigenous name: knowing and naming the maias as a decolonizing epistemology

Abstract

Much of wildlife conservation literature and practices rely on euro-western nomenclature that are legacies of empire. Although seemingly neutral, the practice of (re)naming nature depends on political, philosophical, and social assumptions that encode top-down behaviour and governance in conservation practices. Indigenous communities’ processes of classifying nature are not recognized as valid and, as such, their conservation strategies are made invisible. If Indigenous knowledge is accounted for by contemporary conservation, it is often from a paradigm that focusses on ecological-scientific knowledge, rather than the complex inter-species relationships that Indigenous communities have with nature. As such, Indigenous communities are often perceived as a barrier or problem towards conservation, due to what is perceived as their lack of care for species of conservation interest. In this article, drawing on a kin study of maias conservation in Sarawak, I explore the power dynamics and tensions emerging within practice and discourses of conservation. In particular, I focus upon the struggles and negotiations in which conservation actors understand the orang utan, as they are commonly known in an international space, that overshadow the Iban ways of naming and knowing the orang utan as maias. Finally, I discuss the Iban classifications/names and relations with nature and how this affects different understandings of conservation.