The Politics of Boreal Forest Imaginaries in the Abitibi Region, Québec, Canada
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Between the Tree and the Bark: The Politics of Boreal Forest Imaginaries in the Abitibi region, Québec, Canada by Sébastien Nobert In fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Edinburgh November 2007 II I would like to dedicate this work to my grand-father Harmel LeBel (1908-1996), who, like many young Québécois from the 1920s-1930s, was sent in the Abitibi region to contribute to the upbringing of his 17 brothers and sisters. It is through his lumberjack stories that I had my first contacts with the forest of the Abitibi region and it is through him that I learnt from a very young age the importance to know and the chance to learn. III Declaration I am responsible for composing this thesis. It represents my own work and where the work of others has been used it is duly acknowledged. Signed……………………………………….. Date………………………………………….. IV Abstract This thesis examines the politics of managing the boreal forest in the Abitibi region of Québec in Canada. It pays particular attention to how the plurality of forest users produces multiple forest imaginaries that are involved in the constitution of the micropolitics of quotidian practices of the forest. The aim is to show how different forest imaginaries and their politics could inform current forest management and open up other possibilities for the governance of, and relationships with, the boreal forest. By investigating the power relationships involved in the production of boreal forest politics, this work shows how forestry science and ecology have established and exercised their authority over how the forest is imagined and experienced. This territoriality has been articulated through discourses and practices that promote dominant industrial relationships with the forest which undermine other ways of imagining the relationships between forest users and non-humans. Engaging with post-structuralism theory, phenomenology and political ecology, I demonstrate how the multiplicity of forest users comes to know and experience the boreal forest in various and unstructured ways which destabilise efforts to imagine and construct the forest as a static entity. By paying attention to everyday life practices of various forest users, I show how contestations and negotiations about different imaginaries and places of the boreal forest are interrelated and mutually constituted. These practices and the imaginaries that they construct work together to produce the forest as an open space which is capable of embodying a wide range of meanings. By investigating how the boreal forest is constituted by various unstable imaginary places and politics, I argue that the current territoriality and politics produced by the imbrication of forestry science and industrial forestry should be challenged by another form of governance. This new form of governance needs to acknowledge the relational quality of imaginaries and to democratize the politics of the forest. By showing how abstract concepts such as relational politics can become implemented in current forest policies, the significance of institutions that are already in place and that can serve to embody other politics of the forest is highlighted. Apart from contributing to political ecology and environmental politics, the findings of this research show that political projects which can seem utopian at first glance have the potential to become tangible agents of social and environmental change. V Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge all those who have participated to this research and who have taken time to answer my questions. I am particularly indebted to the inhabitants of the Abitibi region who were always open and happy to help me in my research endeavours and from whom I learnt about the complexity of the politics of the boreal forest. I would like to thank the community of Lac-Simon through which I’ve been initiated to Algonquian culture and relationships with the forest, especially the Conseil de la Nation Anishnabe which introduced me to the trappers of their community. While in Edinburgh, I had the chance to be surrounded by a remarkable group of scholars. I owe much thanks to my supervisors especially to Jan Penrose whose generosity, rigour and great intellectual support throughout these four years were essential for the final version of this thesis and to Andrea Nightingale for introducing me to political ecology and for her encouragements. I also would like to thank other colleagues, who have participated in this thesis by their thoughtful comments and for helping me refining my arguments such as Eric Laurier (who I also acknowledge for giving me free access to his incomparable library), Ignaz Strebel, Joe Leibovitz, Emily Brady and Charlie Withers. I also would like to thank David Howard who offered good support throughout the Ph.D. process as an adviser. Many fellow Ph.D. students helped me to shape my thoughts and offered valuable insights through numerous discussions. Special thanks go to my colleagues from the Barra Suite (Karin Viergever, Ian Cameron, Nick Cutler and Omair Chaudhry) who made my writing time an enjoyable moment and who offered valuable help with formatting the thesis (especially Omair). Many friends in the UK and Canada also contribute to this thesis by challenging me in a daily basis about my own work and their thoughts are somehow reflected through the lines of this thesis. Special thanks go to Guillaume Couture, Javier Albert, Zizis Gagkas, Susana Sebastian, Oscar Vasquez and Mark Friars. All have contributed to change my mind by breaking the work routine and offering distractions. I would like to thank Chris MacCahill for taking me mountain biking to Glen Tress almost every week-end and when I was hesitant, making all the necessary arguments to convince me that going cycling on Saturdays was a new form of religion that should be practiced in the Scottish Borders. Amongst all the people I would like to acknowledge I would like to pay a special tribute to Geneviève Patenaude who has decided to take part of my race by supporting me all over the process that is a Ph.D. despite the ups and downs created by my the nomadic life and often overstressed state. She also offered me the most valuable moments I had during these four years by pushing me out of my office to travel around Europe. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my brother without who this project would have not been possible, their constant encouragements and support throughout my student career was much appreciated, especially towards the end of this Ph.D. when keeping the rhythm was more difficult. I also want to thank the Government of Québec and the British Association of Canadian Studies for awarding me the Prix du Québec 2005 as well as the University of Edinburgh Development Trust for providing extra funding to this project. VI Content Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................................... 1 The Boreal Forest of Abitibi: From Block to Multiple Pieces .......................................... 1 1.1 L’ Erreur Boréale and the production of the problematic boreal forest ............ 1 1.2 A brief overview of the Argument .................................................................. 11 Chapter 2 ......................................................................................................................... 12 From Sustainable Development to Poststructuralism: The Road to Change .................. 12 2.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 12 2.1 From forestry science to poststructuralism ..................................................... 13 2.2 Boundaries, territories and territoriality in the production of the boreal forest imaginaries .................................................................................................................. 17 2.3 The place of imagination and imaginaries in politics ..................................... 20 2.4 Social Nature and the production of the boreal forest space ........................... 25 2.5 Political Ecology and the unequal recognition of forest imaginaries ............. 28 2.6 Conclusion: Bringing imaginaries, territorialities, space and place together ....... 34 Chapter 3 ......................................................................................................................... 37 From Field Methods to Paper: Tracing the Boreal Forest Imaginaries ........................... 37 3.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 37 3.1 From cities to the forest: meeting multiple forest users .................................. 38 3.2 Methodological Objectives ............................................................................. 42 3.2.1 Interviewing through semi-structured interviews ................................... 43 3.2.2 Dealing with distance while interviewing ............................................... 46 3.2.3 Interviewing in Québec City and Montréal ............................................. 47 3.2.4 Interviewing in the Abitibi region and the “snowball” effect ................. 49 3.2.5 Interviewing First Nations ...................................................................... 52 3.2.6 Analysing interviews ............................................................................... 56 3.3 Ethnographic and participant observation experiences