Dr Annette Hübschle

Senior Research Fellow

Dr Annette Hübschle is a senior research fellow in the Public Law Department at the University of Cape Town. She is responsible for the  Global Risk Governance programme's  Environmental Futures project. She is also the African and wildlife trafficking lead on the European Research Council-funded TRANSFORM project, short for Trafficking transformations: objects as agents in transnational criminal networks. Annette also supervises Master’s and PhD students in the Law Faculty and teaches seminars on illicit economies, wildlife crime, securitization and community-based conservation.

Annette holds a PhD in Social Sciences and Economics from the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy and the University of Cologne and a Master of Philosophy in Criminology from the University of Cape Town. While studying towards her PhD, Annette was a member of the Illegal Markets research group at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Germany. In the past, Annette worked as a senior researcher for the Institute for Security Studies, a pan-African applied policy institute. She led and conducted research into organised crime and terrorist financing in Africa. Annette has worked as a researcher, consultant, and practitioner on a variety of organised crime, environmental security, restorative justice and broader African security issues. She also acts as a senior research advisor to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime and is a member of the South African Department of Environmental Affairs-appointed task force against wildlife poisoning, the IUCN Green Criminology Specialist Group, IUCN commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy and IUCN Species Survival Commission on Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Group, Environmental Restorative Justice Network and several academic, journal and policy review boards.

Her current research focuses on understanding the new, and emerging risk landscapes that are shaping 21stcentury securities, with specific focus on biodiversity crimes and the impacts of industrialisation on earth systems as well as the interface between licit and illicit economies and criminal networks. Annette and Clifford Shearing are working on a joint book project that explores why African rural communities might participate in illegal and legal wildlife economies and how alternative, community-oriented strategies can build community resilience against organised wildlife crimes. Pragmatic Conservation: Conservation, the illegal wildlife trade and local communities will be published by Routledge.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

JOURNAL ARTICLES & REPORTS

Hübschle, A., Dore, A. & Davies-Mostert, H. 2021. Focus on victims and the community: applying restorative justice principles to wildlife crime offences in South Africa. The International Journal of Restorative Justice, 4(1) :141-150 doi: 10.5553/TIJRJ.000068

2021. Comparative analysis of illicit supply network structure and operations: Cocaine, wildlife, and sand. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development. 3(1): 50-73. http://doi.org/10.31389/jied.76 (with Nicholas Magliocca et al)

2021. Community and community practitioners' attitudes, perspectives and perceptions of protected areas, conservation and community safety in the context of illegal wildlife trade. White River: WWF Khetha & USAID. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.10776.93445/1 (with Bakholise Jojo)

2021. Guidelines for research in communities: A methodology for understanding community attitudes, perspectives and perceptions of protected areas and community safety in the context of illegal wildlife trade. White River: USAID & WWF Khetha. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.33898.85444

Gore, M.L., Hübschle, A., Botha et.al. 2020. A conservation criminology-based desk assessment of vulture poisoning in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation AreaGlobal Ecology and Conservation.

Hübschle A. 2017. On the Record: Interview with Major General Johan Jooste (Retired), South African National Parks, Head of Special Projects. South African Crime Quarterly 60: 61-68.

Hübschle, A. 2017. Organized environmental crimes: Trends, theory, impact and responsesSouth African Crime Quarterly (with Andrew Faull).

Hübschle, A. 2017. Fluid interfaces between flows of rhino hornGlobal Crime 1-20.

Hübschle, A. 2017.  Economy of Rhino Poaching: Of Economic Freedom Fighters, Professional Hunters and Marginalised Local PeopleCurrent Sociology. 65 (3): 427 - 447.

BOOK CHAPTERS:

Dore, A., Hübschle, A. & Batley, M. 2022. Towards Environmental Restorative Justice in South Africa: How to understand and address wildlife offences. Submission to the Palgrave Handbook on Environmental Restorative Justice,

Mackenzie, S.,  Hübschle, A. and  Yates, D. 2020: Global Trade in Stolen Culture and Nature as Neocolonial Hegemony. In: Blaustein, J., Fitz-Gibbon, K., Pino, N.W. and White, R. (eds.) The Emerald Handbook of Crime, Justice and Sustainable Development. Emerald Publishing Limited. 419-437.

Hübschle, Annette, 2019: Fluid interfaces between flows of rhino horn. In: A. Amicelle, et al. (eds.), The Policing of flows: Challenging contemporary criminology. London: Routledge.

Hübschle, A. 2017. Contested illegality: Processing the trade prohibition of rhino horn. In Beckert, J. and Dewey, M. (eds) The Architecture of Illegal MarketsOxford University Press.

BOOKS:

Dewey, M., Dohmen, C. Engwicht, N. and Hübschle, A. 2019: Schattenwirtschaft: Die Macht der illegalen Märkte. Berlin: Wagenbach.

Hübschle, A. 2016. A Game of Horns: Transnational Flows of Rhino Horn.

REPORTS, Book Reviews AND OP-EDS

Hübschle, A. and  Rathmell, S. 2021. Canadian firm ReconAfrica’s quest for Namibian oil and gas poses seismic risk to elephant behaviour. Daily Maverick. "Our Burning Planet" 3 June, 2021.

Hübschle, Annette, 2021: “The illicit economy in Turkey: How Criminals, Terrorists, and the Syrian Conflict Fuel Underground Markets.” Economic Sociology - the European Electronic Newsletter.

Hübschle, Annette, 2019: Wildlife poisoning in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area WWF Khetha & USAID.

Smith, Emiline, Annette Hübschle, and Donna Yates. 2018. "Heritage, Culture and Rights: Challenging Legal Discourses. By Andrea Durbach and Lucas Lixinski (Eds.). Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017."  Law & Society Review 52 (2):537-540. doi: doi:10.1111/lasr.12333.

Hübschle, Annette with Mafaro Kapiso. 2018. Gendered perspectives in law enforcement and fisheries crime: A Global South perspective. Vienna: LE Femmes, Pesca Dolus.Hübschle, A., with Shearing, C. 2018. Ending wildlife trafficking: Local communities as change agents. Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 1-48.

Hübschle, Annette. 2017. The Groenewald Criminal Network: Background, legislative loopholes and recommendations. Bogotá, Colombia: The Global Observatory of Transnational Criminal Networks.

PODCASTS

The invisible hand 

https://invisiblehandpodcast.com

E4J Global Podcast Series - Episode 11: The social economy of rhino poaching in Southern Africa https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnXqxofBKj8

Timitude podcast https://anchor.fm/timitude/episodes/In-Conversation-with-Dr-Annette--Researcher-and-Conservationist-On-Womens-Monuments-and-more-eihi49/a-a22fc3k

Contact: Annette.Hubschle@uct.ac.za