Abstract

Forests are a crucial and contested part of nature. Their management is at the center of policies and conflicts around global sustainability aspirations and potential futures. Human attitudes and practices play major role in these policies and conflicts. This article focuses on the meanings humans attach to forests. These meanings act as drivers influencing activities and decision-making from forest use to governance, and escalation of forest conflicts.

This article sets out 1) to establish and develop the concept of the human-forest relationship (HFR) in order to elaborate on people’s forest-related meanings, and 2) to discuss the potentials of the HFR concept for forest policy and research with a focus on forest conflicts and potential futures.

The HFR concept depicts a reciprocal relationship between humans and forests that is formed as a result of personal experiences, life histories, as well as cultural and societal backgrounds and environmental settings. HFR possesses the future dimension, as the forest-related meanings may be reflected in the expectations that humans connect to the future state of forests. As forests differ from other natural environments ecologically, culturally, politically, and socially, the HFR concept contributes in identifying, describing and analyzing these forest- specific meanings influencing forest policy and management.

To the Article

“Von Yuppies, Ökos, Egos und dem kleinen Mann” is the title of Malene Gürgen’s interview with the two Flumen scientists Jana Holz and Martin Fritz for the taz. In it, the two talked about “how money, education and environmental awareness are connected” and “which clichés are true and which are not”.

The interview has been published in the weekly wochentaz and online here.

Additional Article

On the same topic Malene Gürgen also published the article “Alles eine Frage der Mentalität” (“It’s all a matter of mentality”) in the taz-newsletter.

Read this article here.

Invitation

We cordially invite you to the first Sociological Forest Symposium on 01.12.2023, 9:30 to 17:00, at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. With this symposium we would like to encourage a low-threshold exchange of sociologists and sociologically researching social scientists working in the field of forests and forestry. Among other things, but not exclusively, the focus will be on questions of forest-based bioeconomy, care, forest use and exploitation, relevant actors and institutions as well as questions of socio-ecological sustainability.

The focus of the event is on networking, exploring different methodological and theoretical perspectives and a specific sociological view on forests.

Two formats of contributions are planned:

a) the classic lecture format (15min + 10 min discussion) and

b) a pitch format (max. 3min pP, preferably with 1-2 slides, a flipchart or poster), in which you can present your research questions or project ideas.

Refreshments will be provided. The flumen project will provide the catering as well as the premises. Travel and possible accommodation costs have to be paid by yourself at this first meeting.

Please send us your registration (title, short abstract, proposed contribution and format or participation without own contribution) by 15.09.2023 (ronja.schroeder@uni-oldenburg.de).

We look forward to your feedback!

The Orga-Team

Jana Holz (Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Institute of Sociology, flumen),

Ronja Mikoleit (Social Change Unit of the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg, Freiburg),

Anna Saave (Humboldt University Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics, BioMaterialities) and

Ronja Schröder (Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Institute of Social Sciences, Social Theory Group)

Büttner, Melissa (2023)

Abstract

This paper draws on the concept of socio-ecological mentalities (Eversberg 2020) and uses the data set of the survey “Environmental Consciousness in Germany 2018”
to develop a typology of mentalities towards every day mobility and sustainability. Applying factor and clusteranalysis, eight different mentalities were extracted sho- wing that automobility is in the very center of a conflict revolving around a possible transformation of the mobility sector. To illustrate these finding and to highlight the relationships between the clusters, these mentalities were grouped in two camps: One the one hand there are four persistent car-centred attitudes which are (1) the anti-eco- logical car-enthusiasm, (2) the expansionist multioptionalism, (3) the conservative automobilism and a (4) pseudo-affirmative growth affinity. On the other hand, there is a camp that covers car-sceptical and progressive attitudes consisting of (5) the pragmatic preference for public transport, (6) the discontented forced automobility, the (7) mobility minimalism and (8) the progressive bicycle enthusiasm. Both camps cover each approximately half of the sample. This constellation of very different, even strongly opposing mentalities indicates that every day mobility and its possible future transformation is a highly polarized field of conflict with a strong discontent about regulations of the automobile system. The last section of the paper then applies the concept of fossil mentalities (Büttner/Schmelzer 2021) to discuss in how far these ty- pes of attitudes are based on ideas and notions of mobility that only evolved through the mass usage of fossil fuels. Using the relational approach of socio-ecological men- talities thereby proved to be a useful framework to highlight opportunities as well as hurdles towards a socio-ecological transformation.

To the Working Paper No 7