Foresters, Borders, and Bark Beetles: The Future of Europe's Last Primeval Forest

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Synopsis
“A compelling investigation of the pasts and possible futures of a critical ecosystem in an era of globalization and rising nationalism.” —Andrew S. Mathews, author of Instituting NatureIn Europe’s last primeval forest, at Poland’s easternmost border with Belarus, the deep past of ancient oaks, woodland bison, and thousands of species of insects and fungi collides with authoritarian and communist histories.Foresters, biologists, environmentalists, and locals project the ancient Bialowieza Forest as a series of competing icons in struggles over memory, land, and economy, which are also struggles about whether to log or preserve the woodland; whether and how to celebrate the mixed ethnic Polish/Belarusian peasant past; and whether to align this eastern outpost with ultraright Polish political parties, neighboring Belarus, or the European Union. Eunice Blavascunas provides an intimate ethnographic account, gathered in more than 20 years of research, to untangle complex forest conflicts between protection and use. She looks at which pasts are celebrated, which fester, and which are altered in the tumultuous decades following the collapse of communism.Foresters, Borders, and Bark Beetles is a timely and fascinating work of cultural analysis and storytelling that textures its ethnographic reading of people with the agency of the forest itself and its bark beetle outbreaks, which threaten to alter the very composition of the forest in the age of the Anthropocene. “Through vivid storytelling, Eunice Blavascunas illuminates the durability of struggles around national identity and history—and the ways those struggle shape debates over ecology and nature conservation—in one of Europe’s quintessential borderlands.” —Katrina Z. S. Schwartz, author of Nature and National Identity after Communism
Copyright:
2020

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
236 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780253052285
Related ISBNs:
9780253049582
Publisher:
Indiana University Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Eunice Blavascunas
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Outdoors and Nature, Social Studies, Earth Sciences, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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