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Global Forest Histories (HEC-RS-FORHIS-25)

HEC-RS-FORHIS-25

Description

Forests are not a common object of research for political historians of the modern period. While early modern historians have studied forests as sites of economic practice, social conflict, and, at least indirectly, state-building, modern historians have tended to consider forests as unpolitical spaces existing apart from society. Yet new approaches to environmental and agricultural history, colonial and international history, the history of natural resources, and the history of knowledge suggest that forests deserve to be studied in more depth.
Forests are complex ecosystems with global ecological relevance; they provide habitat to the largest number of land-based animals and plants on the planet; they contain sources of fresh water as well as plants that serve as food and medicinal products; they hold spiritual and cultural value for many societies. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, forests became increasingly reduced to being seen as deposits of valuable natural resources, a trend that resulted in the intensification of extractivist practices. At the same time, the threat of deforestation and the unwanted effects of interventions into forest environments triggered conservation and protection efforts.
In the seminar, we will investigate the ways in which economic interests in forests changed and shaped forest use across the globe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Special attention will be paid to the political conditions under which forest use took place and was discussed: from empires to nation states, from colonial to postcolonial contexts, from local sites to international organizations. We will analyze the interplay of these political settings with climatic conditions, social and cultural practices, scientific assumptions, and technological developments. The goal of the seminar is to give participants a) an understanding of the relevance of forests in global history and b) a chance to discuss a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches in an emerging research field.
 

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