The Invisible Hand

CHAPTERS

Chapter I

WHERE YOU STAND DEPENDS ON WHERE YOU SIT

Georgina returns to South Africa. There we meet her cousin Tam and Tam’s family in the Kruger National Park, where husband Greg works as a head ranger, tasked with the enormous burden of winning an impossible war against rhino poaching.

Chapter II

PEOPLE ARE TRAPPED IN HISTORY AND HISTORY IS TRAPPED IN THEM

Living amongst a conservation unit, Georgina gets to know those on the front lines of this conflict, the rangers, some of whom are ostracised from their communities beyond the park for their willing protection of a “white man’s playground.”

Chapter III

THE MASTER’S TOOLS WILL NEVER DISMANTLE THE MASTER’S HOUSE

We hear from “the wives” – a group of women who find themselves living far from home in support of their husbands’ conservation dreams. These women have varying degrees of commitment to the cause, but all of them a great deal to lose, as violence in the Kruger continues.

Chapter IV

Wilderness is the Preservation of the World

We examine the contentious history of conservation, its colonial roots, and the murky concept of “wilderness” at the heart of modern environmentalist movements. But does the theory become irrelevant when hit with the brutality first hand?

Chapter V

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Georgina travels to a private game reserve, where a poaching incident forces staff members to question their assumptions about those branded “poacher.”

Chapter VI

REALITY CANNOT BE DEPRIVED OF THE “OTHER ECHOES THAT INHABIT THE GARDEN”

In an attempt to understand “the other” side of this story, Georgina crosses the border to Mozambique, and immerses herself in a rural village known to conservationists as a “poaching hotspot.”

Chapter VII

I AM NOT THE WE OF ANYONE

The women of Sabie and Domingos’ friend Kevin tell their stories and help us to explore the impact of inequality locally and globally as we tussle with issues of relativity, identity and power.

Chapter VIII

A CHILD CANNOT PAY FOR ITS MOTHER’S MILK

The ongoing impact of colonisation, the apartheid regime, widespread corruption and increasingly climate change, determine the lives of young people in Sabie. Georgina meets a man who confesses to having poached, and he has a message for “the west”. And just as this story is about to take us to Vietnam, a virus begins shutting borders.