“We are the people of conservation” negotiations of local officers to implement conservation in National Park Sumapaz

Using ethnographic methods examining the case of the Natural Park Sumapaz, the research delves into the analysis of how conservation in those restricted areas could be more a matter of a daily construction rather than a hegemonic tactic for state expansion. In the Colombian case, where protected areas management occur in the middle of territorial conflicts and warfare, coercive conservation tactics are devoid of enough power, making negotiation strategies more feasible to be applied in contested territories. Coercion and Negotiation are two elements that help to understand how state, particularly its conservation project is locally and daily made. The research uses actor oriented approaches to highlight the importance of local bureaucrats in the process of state formation. Those actors, in charge to materialize state projects in field, could use their own meanings, motives and power sources in response to the local reactions that emerge when conservation policies are tried to be implemented. Those local actions and interactions contribute to determine how state is locally configured and conservation project is territorialized.