**Winner of the 2010 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing,
presented by the American Anthropological Association**
Shared concern for nature can be a way of transcending national, ethnic,
religious, and cultural boundaries, yet conservation efforts often pit
the interests of historically rooted or indigenous peoples against the
state and international environmental organizations, eroding local
autonomy while "saving" rural land for animals and tourists. Wild
Sardinia's examination of the cultural politics around nature
conservation and the traditional Commons on an Italian island
illustrates the complexities of environmental stewardship. Long known as
the home of fiercely independent shepherds (often typecast as rustics,
bandits, or eco-vandals), as well as wild mouflon sheep, magnificent
eagles, and rare old oak forests, the town of Orgosolo has for several
decades received notoriety through local opposition to Gennargentu
National Park.
Interweaving rich ethnographic description of highland central Sardinia
with analysis grounded in political ecology and reflexive cultural
critique, Wild Sardinia illuminates the ambivalent and open-ended
meanings of many Sardinians' acts and memories of "resistance" to
environmental projects. This groundbreaking case study of the tension
between living cultural landscapes and the emerging ecological
imaginaries envisioned through policy discourses and new media -- the
"global dreamtimes of environmentalism" -- has relevance far beyond its
Mediterranean locale.
