Abstract
In the 1990s, white, mostly women conservationists from the Global North started primate sanctuaries across Africa to provide lifelong care to chimpanzees orphaned by the transnational pet, zoo, and bushmeat trades. A new moral imperative—caring for chimps for chimps’ sake—drove their efforts. Directors, managers, volunteers, and staff converge on sanctuaries from Africa, Europe, Australasia, and North America, and their attempts to define and enact “care” have led to complex negotiations fraught with tension. This dissertation explores how orphaned chimpanzees and humans navigate “care” in day-to-day sanctuary life, and how humans from different moral worlds negotiate race and conservation in the sanctuary and beyond. It is based on 20 months of fieldwork that I carried out as a volunteer caregiver in two of Cameroon’s international primate sanctuaries. I demonstrate how care in Cameroon’s sanctuaries unfolds through three key themes: species, race, and cuteness, and I raise timely questions about the illegal wildlife trade and conservation in Africa as chimpanzee extinction draws near.