Analyzing community-based forestry: Local, political and agrarian perspectives

Published Date
June 2006, Vol.8(4):339–349, doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2005.08.005
Community-based forestry in the developing world: Analyses from an agrarian perspective

Author 
Thomas Sikor ^,

Humboldt University, Berlin, Junior Research Group on Postsocialist Land Relations, Luisenstr. 56, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Received 27 June 2005. Accepted 30 June 2005. Available online 30 September 2005. 

Abstract

This article serves as a substantive introduction to the special issue on community-based forestry. It situates the articles contained in this issue in relation to existing research on the social relationships and practices constituting forestry on the ground. Three perspectives on local forest relations, two well established and one emergent, are identified. The local perspective accords analytical priority to micro-level processes and emphasizes local factors as the primary influences on local forest relations. The political perspective emphasizes the contested nature of property in forest, linking local contestations to the effects of larger political forces, in particular states. The third, emergent perspective is agrarian, situating local forest relations at the intersection of local-level processes and larger economic and political forces. This article reviews examples of research employing these perspectives, discusses the papers in this volume with an eye on their relations with the agrarian perspective, and links the agrarian perspective to current concerns in forest policy.

Keywords

Community-based forestry

Local forest relations

Conceptual underpinnings

State

Market

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