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Paper short abstract

This paper examines forest conflict in Poland as a site of friction (Tsing 2004). Drawing on engaged ethnographic research, it focuses on the emerging category of the “social forest” and explores how it is negotiated across scales, producing tensions beyond polarised positions.

Paper long abstract

Simple stories are simple. Activists love the forest, foresters exploit it. Foresters speak in the language of numbers, activists – of emotions. I caught myself in the same thinking.

This paper grows out of an attempt to move beyond such simplified narratives in the context of forest conflict in Poland. Based on ongoing, engaged ethnographic research, I examine this conflict not as binary confrontation but as a dynamic process shaped by friction — understood, following Anna Tsing (2004), as the awkward, unstable, and creative qualities of connection across difference.

Shifting my attention towards frictions, I’m asking, what can emerge from the conflict over forests in Poland? Is there a chance to look at forests in terms of cooperation?

An example of friction that I will discuss is the concept of the “social forest,” which is a new category in Polish forest politics. I argue that the social forest is a category that brings together ideas from different levels of politics. While embedded in local struggles, it is also shaped by broader global frameworks, e.g. notions of sustainable development. At the same time, the category produces new divisions: by separating “social” from “natural” functions, it risks reproducing a conceptual split between humans and nature.

By following the meaning of the social forest, the paper explores whether this concept can act as a site of friction rather than further polarisation. Given that the fieldwork is still in progress, I will focus on the processes through which this category is negotiated and contested.