We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Discursive Context of Forest in Land Use Documents: An Irish Case Study.
- Authors
Asselin, Jodie; Asselin, Gabriel; Egli, Flavia
- Abstract
The term forest can signify many different physical realities. However, discourse analysis of Irish National and European Union forestry-related documents indicates ambiguity around this term is often cultivated rather than clarified. We argue here that policy language often embraces the multiple potential affordances within the term forest as a means of discursively bridging contradictions between economic and conservation goals. While this technique increases the readability and acceptability of such documents by diverse user groups and government bodies, it mutes the on-the-ground tensions of what forests mean for locals. Moreover, cultivating ambiguity favors the status quo through circumventing points of contradiction and shifting the work of interpretation and application of such documents to those on-the-ground, therefore perpetuating existing power differentials. As forests are central to resource management and responses to climate change, addressing this tendency is crucial to finding meaningful and place-specific environmental solutions.
- Subjects
IRELAND; FORESTS &; forestry; EUROPEAN Union; LAND use; DISCOURSE analysis; LANGUAGE policy; CONSERVATION projects (Natural resources)
- Publication
Nature & Culture, 2022, Vol 17, Issue 2, p170
- ISSN
1558-6073
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3167/nc.2022.170203