1143 | 614 | Postpolitical environmentalism in Romanian virgin forests | Alexandru Gavriș; Mircea Gherghina
With the help of topic modelling we explore how the Romanian virgin forests transform under postpolitical environmentalism. We attempt to capture the web of relations that set the scene for a consensus over managerial and nonextractivist agenda where elites are called to action towards setting a surveillance technology in public discourse. The painted picture of a system of surveillance that would replace a political governance system clashes behind a political spectacle that sees a network of NGOs, local governments, and members of the wood industry’s supply chain reveal the shortcomings of technological fixes. It is therefore essential to clarify how networks endorsing the environment intervene and shape the forest governance, trying to advance specific views of ecological rationalities and national exceptionalism aligned within technologies of governance. First, we highlight this dynamic of valuation that may allow for a new imaginary to emerge, one where the local exploitative practices need to move along the treadmill of production towards the sustainability paradigm. A non-performing existing forest governance acts like a vacuum of power that allows alternative imaginaries of conservation to clash with a muddy, tacitly understood local informal economy that feeds into a global supply chain that takes virgin forest wood from hyperlocalized informal arrangements to a production pipeline that transcends borders. This renders virgin forests not only as a spatial dichotomy between localized yet global, but also as a space in need of intervention from actors removed from its materiality, with yet to be articulated stakes in its governance. Second, this research analyzes the struggle over meaning that we argue constitutes a strategy suited for harmonising a contested view on forests governance. The two endeavors allow us to uncover the insights of interactions framing power that advances in a context of (imaginaries projections over) environmental contentiousness.
Alexandru Gavriș; Mircea Gherghina
Bucharest University of Economic Studies; University of Toronto
ID Abstract: 614