Story | 10 Aug, 2020

Masculinities in Forests, Diversity and Forest Management

CEESP News: by Carol J. Pierce Colfer, member of CEESP; Senior Associate at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR); Visiting Scholar at Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program, Ithaca, New York, USA

The book Masculinities in Forests: Representations of Diversity demonstrates the wide variability in ideas about, and practice of, masculinity in different forests, and how these relate to forest management. Author Carol J. Pierce Colfer takes a journey, which begins with her childhood, proceeding to four research contexts (in the US and two cases in Indonesia). The fourth turns to masculinities among international colleagues. The book concludes with a discussion of the relevance of the study for forest management.

Masculinities in Forests: Representations of Diversity: book

Photo: Carol J. Pierce Colfer

Book on masculinity in different forests, and how these relate to forest management

Photo: earthscan & Carol J. Pierce Colfer

Men load logs from lands they considered their own, but which the government considered part of the national forest estate, in Lubuk Kambing, a village in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Photo © Carol J. Pierce Colfer

While forestry is widely considered a masculine domain, a significant portion of the literature on gender and development focuses on the role of women, not men. This book addresses this gap and also highlights how there are significant, demonstrable differences in masculinities from forest to forest.

Photo: earthscan & Carol J. Pierce Colfer

The book develops a simple conceptual framework for considering masculinities, one which both acknowledges the stability or enduring quality of masculinities, but also the significant masculinity-related options available to individual men within any given culture. The author draws on her own experiences, building on her long-term experience working globally in the conservation and development worlds, also observing masculinities among such professionals. The core of the book examines masculinities, based on long-term ethnographic research in the rural Pacific Northwest of the US; Long Segar, East Kalimantan; and Sitiung, West Sumatra, both in Indonesia. The author concludes by pulling together the various strands of masculine identities and discussing the implications of these various versions of masculinity for forest management.

This book will be essential reading for students and scholars of forestry, gender studies and conservation and development, as well as practitioners and NGOs working in these fields.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Figures and Boxes
List of Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Glossary

Masculinities in Forests: Here and There, Then and Now
[Remembered] American Masculinities from my Girlhood (1940s-1970s)
Immersion in Rural America: The Case of Bushler Bay
Masculinities and Muted Gender in Bali and Kalimantan
Masculinities in Conflict in West Sumatra
Masculinities Among the ‘Development Set’
Revisits to Old Haunts (with Andrew Balan Pierce and Sufiet Erlita)
The Relevance of Masculinities for Forests and Their Management

Index

Photo: Richard G. Dudley

Author:

Carol J. Pierce Colfer is a Senior Associate at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Visiting Scholar at Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program, Ithaca, New York, USA. She is author/editor of numerous books, including co-editor of The Earthscan Reader on Gender and Forests (Routledge, 2017) and Gender and Forests: Climate Change, Tenure, Value Change and Emerging Issues (Routledge, 2016).

Book Reviews

"I enjoyed reading this book and tried to look at my own harp before and after. I hope you will like it... A must-read, especially if you are a proud male forester (like me)." — Robert Nasi, Director General, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

"Carol Colfer shows us how masculinities affects us all in a deep, critical and personal reflection that exposes the unconscious assumptions about the distribution of powers and privileges, and appropriate roles, relations and identities of men and women in environment and development contexts around the world. By her example, Colfer challenges her readers to re-examine deeply-held beliefs that are both personal and political." — Maureen G. Reed, Distinguished Professor, School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan

"It is a rare and precious thing for a reader to be able to learn from the rich insights garnered in over a long career as a professional anthropologist working in some of the world’s most important forest landscapes. This important book on masculinities and their relatedness with forests is a gift: a timely reminder that making sense of gender in this way is a crucial step in understanding questions of equity in forest livelihoods and professional lives. " — Rebecca Elmhirst, Human Geographer, University of Brighton

"Masterful scholarship with a purpose... this book has wide-ranging relevance across many fields, non-anthropologists not only may have something useful to say about it but also need to read it for their own benefit. Bravo for a brave and timely work!" — Michael S. Cummings, Professor (retired), Political Science, University of Colorado, Denver