Paper Short Abstract:

The focus of this presentation are the more recent stages of the evolution of the political forest, after 1990s and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, with special reference to the dissonance detected during fieldwork, the dissonance some of the informants expressed between their “ecological loyalty” to the eco-system of the forest and the extractivist demands put on them by their jobs and the habitus of scientific forestry, which views the forest exclusively as a resource.

Paper Abstract:

This presentation is based on a long-term ethnographic research in the village of Drežnica in central Croatia. Situated in a densely forested region, the village is and was deeply reliant on the forest. During WWII, it provided refuge and shelter from offensives and a home to the partisan hospital, which required the mobilization of local knowledge of the forest. After WWII, here, as well as elsewhere in the young and war-torn country – socialist Yugoslavia - wood was extracted as one of the most important resources of post-war reconstruction. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, ownership of the majority of the forested areas was taken over by Hrvatske šume (Croatian forests), a limited liability company. This presentation continues my previous research on work and the political forest in Drežnica (Grgurinović 2023). Here I want to focus on the later stages of the evolution of the political forest (Peluso and Vandergeest 2001, 2011; Vandergeest and Peluso 2006), after 1990s and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, with special reference to the dissonance detected with some of my informants – forestry workers - between their “ecological loyalty” to the forest as an eco-system and the extractivist demands put on them by their jobs and the habitus of scientific forestry, which views the forest exclusively as a resource. This dissonance is the space of a social conflict born out of challenging the hegemony of the state and scientific forestry over the forest ecosystem.