- Convenors:
-
Ethemcan Turhan
(University of Groningen)
Nurbahar Usta (Hacettepe University)
Cem İskender Aydın (Bogazici University)
Ismail Bekar (Technical University of Munich)
Lore Graf (Technical University of Darmstadt)
Ioanna Chatzikonstantinou (Polytechnic University of Turin)
- Format:
- Panel
Format/Structure
Panel
Long Abstract
The Mediterranean climate zones (stretching from Chile and California to the Mediterranean basin itself and then to Australian southwest) are uniquely vulnerable regions with high-fire activity. As historical fire regimes in these zones are radically altered by climate change, land-use shifts and demographic changes, they are gaining scholarly attention – both as sites of disaster narratives and spaces of transformative potential and hope.
Fire has, for millennia, been a factor of human influence in the Mediterranean eco-systems which thus are deeply anthropogenic landscapes (Pyne, 2009). The resulting local knowledges and stories of guarding, cleaning and protecting forests, pastures and fallows precisely through human presence and activity are often in sharp contrast to state narratives on combating wildfires. Recent research by wildfire experts suggests that current Mediterranean fire management policies, focusing on firefighting and suppression, are destined to fail as they are unfit to account for the non-linear impacts of climate and landscape changes (Moreira et al., 2020). Moreover, political contestations around wildfires are frequently reflected in struggles for livelihoods, (indigenous and rural) land ownership and usage rights. This calls for holistic planning approaches grounded in multispecies justice in wildlife-urban interfaces (WUI), rural areas and beyond.
This panel explores the intersection of planning and solution approaches to wildfire risks and the socio-ecological role of the “political forest” (Peluso & Vandergeest, 2001). We invite critical submissions on Mediterranean wildfires that go beyond official narratives and lead a way through the unfolding climate catastrophes, related (but not limited) to:
- Multispecies justice
- Feminist and decolonial approaches to wildfire management
- Earthcare labor and fire ecologies
- State capacity and neoliberal fire-fighting regimes
- the politics of “degraded” land, “empty space” and Green Extractivism
- Politics of reforestation/afforestation/adaptation
- Marginalization and politics of blame
- methodologies of political ecology and activist research
Accepted papers
Presentation short abstract
In the Catalan Pyrenees, peasants' knowledge of wildfire prevention has been dismissed and prohibited. The increased implementation of wildfire suppression policies, along with the expansion of bureaucratic forest management, has resulted in the neglect of local practices and knowledge.
Presentation long abstract
“Unspoiled landscapes of great beauty” is the claim that opens many official brochures forecasting the Catalan Pyrenees as a tourist site. Celebrated due to its natural richness, rural heritage, and isolated villages, the region falls within several categories of protected natural areas. For many of its inhabitants, though, the woods are “filthy” and “unkempt”. High rates of outmigration in the region, especially during the 60s and 70s, left behind a scenario of depopulated landscapes and abandoned agricultural pasturelands, especially in the upper valleys. The laborious effort of generations to reclaim land from the forest and make way for large, cultivated areas is forgotten, and its obliteration is even celebrated within conservationists’ discourses. Reforestation, rewilding, and land abandonment are widespread dynamics and key to understanding the feeling of disenfranchisement and neglect expressed by the local population. Thus, the structuring of expert knowledge of woods comes hand in hand with a growing sense of slow dispossession. I will discuss the increased deployment of policies for wildfire risk extinction and prevention, together with the expansion of bureaucratic institutions for forest management, resulting in the dismissal of local practices and knowledges. The long-term processual perspective gained through deep ethnographic fieldwork in the past 20 years will help me understand the changing perspectives and the affective dimensions of the current risk of wildfire among anxieties of climate change.
Presentation short abstract
Wildfires in rural Spain strain psychosocial care providers who support responders and communities. Ongoing interviews reveal intense emotional labor, gaps in psychosocial support, and structural inequalities, underscoring the social dimensions of emotional care in wildfire governance.
Presentation long abstract
Wildfires in Mediterranean-type climates are increasing in frequency and severity, disproportionately affecting rural communities. While much research has examined fire regimes and territorial management, the psychosocial impacts and the work of those providing emotional support during emergencies remain underexplored. This work-in-progress study analyses the experiences of psychosocial care providers responding to wildfires in rural Spain, territories marked by depopulation, limited infrastructure, and contested land-use. Through qualitative interviews and analysis of institutional protocols, we explore how these professionals, who assist the operational sector and the broader public, navigate the social and political dimensions of fire. Our findings highlight the emotional labor of providers, the gaps in psychosocial care, and the structural inequalities that shape both the delivery of support and the experiences of affected communities. By situating emotional care within broader debates on rural marginalization, territorial governance, and the political ecology of fire, this study emphasizes the need for integrated approaches that consider social and spatial inequalities alongside conventional wildfire management. The insights generated offer implications for enhancing the well-being of communities in high-fire-risk Mediterranean landscapes and for designing wildfire governance strategies that acknowledge the central role of psychosocial support in disaster contexts.
Presentation short abstract
Post-wildfire landscapes in Portugal reveal how state policies, land histories, and multispecies practices shape wildfires and regeneration. This paper examines burned forests as political-ecological archives and explores local alternatives to dominant fire-fighting regimes.
Presentation long abstract
This paper examines the political ecologies of post-wildfire landscapes in Central Portugal. While state approaches continue to privilege suppression, surveillance, and technocratic prevention, the afterlives of wildfires reveal a more complex socio-ecological terrain in which histories of state formation, land reform, extractivism, and rural marginalization become materially and politically inscribed. Drawing on the first year of an ongoing ethnographic study, the paper explores how burned forests operate as political-ecological archives: they expose the failures of monoculture forestry, the extractivism of the cellulose industry and the privitazation of forests.
Engaging with political ecology, feminist and decolonial environmental anthropology, and multispecies studies, the paper foregrounds how communities, plants, animals, and land practices collaboratively inhabit and reshape post-fire environments. Emerging local and multispecies responses, such as regenerative agroforestry and collective land-care initiatives challenge state narratives of degraded or empty landscapes and instead highlight possibilities for collaborative survival and socio-ecological repair. These practices complicate dominant framings of rural residents as passive victims or irresponsible land managers, showing how knowledge, care labour, and ecological memory contribute to alternative fire futures.
By examining post-wildfire landscapes as sites of political contestation and multispecies negotiation, the paper moves beyond destruction-oriented disaster narratives. It argues that attending to the lived realities of burned territories opens pathways for more just and ecologically attuned approaches to wildfire governance across Mediterranean climate zones.
Presentation short abstract
This talk examines the different attitudes of animal herders and wildland firefighters towards emergency responses and wildfire prevention strategies, comparing across three Mediterranean case study areas in Italy and Spain. The focus is on local fire practices, prescribed fire and targeted grazing.
Presentation long abstract
This talk draws on findings from my PhD research to examine differences in wildfire prevention strategies across three case study areas: Monte Pisano (Tuscany, Italy), the Aurunci and Ausoni Mountains (Lazio, Italy), and Sant Llorenç del Munt (Catalunya, Spain).
The study areas are distinct geographical locations, thematically connected by the pyro- and socio-geographical changes associated with rural abandonment, Mediterranean vegetation, climate change, mountainous terrain, and extensive animal herding practices associated with either pastoral tradition, target grazing programmes, or neoruralism. These features have profoundly impacted wildfire behaviour, risk leves, and fire management strategies.
The presentation compares the different attitudes of local people, especially firefighters and animal herders, towards roles and responsibilities in emergency response systems and landscape management across the three case studies, focusing on local fire practices, prescribed fire, and targeted grazing.
Across the three areas, differing attitudes have resulted in a wide variety of strategies in fire prevention and emergency response. While significant challenges and risk factors remain in place in Monte Pisano and Sant Llorenç del Munt, a positive attitude towards preventive practices, paired with the involvement of local communities, is showing the potential to lead local fire management services out of the firefighting trap and towards the (re)establishment of a balanced fire regime.
In contrast, in the Aurunci Mountains, a significant investment in wildfire suppression and securitarian measures, paired with tension between institutions and sections of the local population, is engendering the opposite effect, giving rise to a maladaptive social-ecological system and a seemingly perpetual fire crisis.
Presentation short abstract
Today, wildfires frequently manifest as extreme events, particularly in certain latitudes such as the Mediterranean region of Europe. In these cases, firefighting capacities are often insufficient to contain or extinguish large fires.
Presentation long abstract
Today, wildfires frequently manifest as extreme events, particularly in certain latitudes such as the Mediterranean region of Europe. In these cases, firefighting capacities are often insufficient to contain or extinguish large fires. The authors analyse the traditional approach of fire exclusion, mainly based on fast suppression, highlighting the "fire paradox" that leads to fuel accumulation, making further fires more intense and catastrophic.
Wildfires are studied here through the lens of the Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) framework, in order to interpret their evolution and geography. In addition, the Critical Disaster Studies (CDS) framework offers a critical perspective on wildfire governance, regulation, and operational management, as well as on their interconnections with the broader socio-economic contradictions affecting local territories. The CDS argues that wildfires must be approached in all their complexity, through transdisciplinary and intersectional perspectives - contrary to the reductionist approaches, flattened on a technical level, adopted in the past.
A particular focus was dedicated to the Mediterranean context, in particular to Tuscany, where the abandonment of traditional agro-silvo-pastoral activities and rural depopulation have altered the landscape, increasing the vulnerability of these areas to wildfire. The authors suggest moving to "Integrated Fire Management", which includes prevention, education, and finally emergency management. The importance of involving local communities (for example, through Firewise initiatives) to build collective resilience, recover a "culture of fire," and move from a strategy of dominance to one of conscious coexistence is stressed in this paper, through risk perception analysis.
Presentation short abstract
This paper aims to establish a connection between wildfires as a natural phenomenon and the political dynamics surrounding land ownership and knowledge by examining the historical processes that shaped different uses of landscape which in turn has made land areas susceptible to wildfires.
Presentation long abstract
Increase in wildfires has changed parts of the landscape and ecosystems of the Mediterranean region. By using the firecapes approach, this paper aims to establish a connection between wildfires as a natural phenomenon and the political dynamics surrounding land ownership, knowledge, and mitigation. Theoretically, we apply political ecology to contextualize firescapes by examining the historical processes that have shaped different uses of landscape which in turn has made land areas susceptible to wildfires. Empirical evidence is derived from literature review, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups with local municipal actors in wildfire mitigation in Tuscany, Italy. Results demonstrate that while Tuscany is climatically predisposed to wildfire activity, historical processes of industrialization and commercialization have rendered the land more vulnerable to destruction by wildfire. Historically-informed and community-based approaches are recommended for sustainable wildfire prevention and mitigation.
Presentation short abstract
Drawing on the Akyaka Disaster Volunteers’ response to the 2021 Turkey fires, we present "FireGuard": a participatory digital platform pilot. It converts local knowledge into verifiable data, bridging community and state efforts to escape the "Fire Fighting Trap" and foster anti-fragile earthcare.
Presentation long abstract
This contribution frames the response to the Mediterranean wildfire crisis as a practice-based intervention. We identify the "Fire Fighting Trap" a reactive suppression cycle driven by political imperatives, as a failure to value preventative stewardship, which paradoxically accelerates biomass accumulation and risk. To counter this, we draw on the evolution of the Akyaka Disaster Volunteers in the Gökova region of Southwest Turkey following the catastrophic 2021 mega-fires.
Central to this intervention is the development of "FireGuard," a participatory digital platform pilot-tested in 2025. FireGuard serves as a "collective risk ledger," a novel digital tool that enables rural residents to map local hazards and assets using mobile interfaces. This converts tacit ecological knowledge into actionable, verifiable data for state planning.
Results from the 2025 pilot across 16 neighborhoods demonstrate the efficacy of this approach: community-logged data led to immediate, state-executed fuel reduction and cleared evacuation routes. Furthermore, the process shifted institutional perceptions, transforming volunteers from emergency manpower into essential partners in risk management. By leveraging this digital commons infrastructure to bridge the gap between informal community labor and formal institutional governance, we demonstrate a concrete pathway for fostering "anti-fragile" communities. This approach moves beyond resilience, aiming to restore the severed metabolic relationship between inhabitants and their landscape through valued, verifiable earthcare.
Presentation short abstract
This research problematizes wildfires from a critical territorial perspective. By understanding territories as the product of power relations and the biophysical environment across temporal and spatial scales, it broadens up the scope of the transformative potential of the resilience ambition
Presentation long abstract
Wildfires are increasingly recognized as a complex socioecological phenomenon in the Mediterranean context, yet their linkages with other domains such as territorial development are not clearly spelled out. This article seeks to critically unveil the sociopolitical and sociospatial ramifications of wildfires by framing them as a territorial issue, and understanding fire-prone territories as dynamic entities that emerge in essentially political processes, defined by socioecological and power relations that unfold across different spatial and temporal scales. Against this backdrop, building resilience is considered a territorially embedded and continuous process, driven by socio-political mechanisms operating “behind the flames.” By operationalizing this framework in the region of Valencia (Spain), it is shown how current structures create lock-ins and hinder transformation, whereas socially innovative strategies can enhance resilience. This research showcases the importance of building a trusting, collaborative culture across sectors capable of bridging the rural-urban divide. It also brings to the forefront the importance of considering rural–urban relationships for reducing territorial inequalities and building more resilient futures in Mediterranean, fire-prone territories.