People, power and timber: The politics of community-based forest management

Foucault in the forests—A review of the use of ‘Foucauldian’ concepts in forest policy analysis

“…Sletto (2008Sletto ( , p. 1945, in a similar vein as Mathews (2005) and also in a case study on fire suppression policy, but without explicitly criticizing Foucault, points out the frictions between discourse and practices, laconically noting that despite the long presence of the fire suppression discourse and programs in Venezuela, the indigenous Permon "burn as before". Comparable limitations on the effects of hegemonic discourses are also described by other scholars (Sowerwine, 2004;Pulhin and Dressler, 2009). In this sense, lacking material and administrative state capacities seem to limit the power of hegemonic state discourses on the ground, thus making discourse analyses at the national level less conclusive and, consistent with Foucauldian thinking, directing research interests at the level of micro-power and individual constraints.…”

“…For instance, Pulhin and Dressler (2009) show how local communities can, given certain conditions, be effective in negotiating or even be resistant to a state policy aiming at centralizing power under a 'mask' of decentralization, thus controlling 'their own' timber resources.…”

Uso de recursos madeireiros em duas comunidades rurais de Angical do Piauí/PI, Brasil

“…Pesquisas apontam que a importação de madeira continuará a ser a principal forma de abastecimento de madeira doméstica na China (Yang et al, 2010). Diversos trabalhos realizados em vários países também apresentaram usos de espécies lenhosas, bem como as consequências da extração indiscriminada, tais como os realizados por Depro et al (2008), Guariguata et al (2008), Nelson et al (2009), Pulhin & Dressler (2009), Guariguata et al (2010), Leefers e Vasievich (2010), Nasi et al (2012), Silva et al (2012) e Robiglio et al (2013).…”

Governance Challenges in Community-Based Forest Management in the Philippines

“…While several recent meta-analyses illustrate the difficulty in comparing results across methodologically inconsistent case studies (e.g., Lund et al 2009;Bowler et al 2012), one major comparative study of CBFM finds that livelihood outcomes are mixed but have no overall losses, and that forest outcomes tend to be positive in Asia, mixed in Africa, and have no change in Latin America (Larson et al 2010). Specific case studies illustrate the challenges that CBFM has in achieving forest conservation and poverty alleviation simultaneously (e.g., Pulhin and Dressler 2009;Pascua and Iglesias 2012;Rantala et al 2012;Cagalanan 2013), commonly identifying various governance problems as explanations for shortcomings of CBFM approaches.…”

“…Instead of decentralization, deconcentration usually occurs in which the state defines both the conservation problems and their solutions (Alcorn 2005) and government agents at the local level retain authority, while the responsibility of carrying out forest management is devolved to local forest users (Ribot 2004). In the Philippines, where decentralization is central to the state's forest conservation agenda, this rearrangement of structure within the state system increases state control and surveillance of rural communities and their environments (Bryant 2002) such that the devolution of forest management responsibilities actually recentralizes power with the state (Pulhin and Dressler 2009). Communities may stand to benefit from this reorganization by gaining a stronger claim to such benefits as livelihood assistance (Li 2001;Cagalanan 2013), as well as increased market involvement (Dressler and Roth 2011).…”