Conférence de Martin Hébert et Patrick Blanchet: European Association for Environmental History (UK), 16 septembre prochain

Martin Hébert, Ph. D., professeur d’anthropologie à l’Université Laval et vice-président de la Société d’histoire forestière du Québec (SHFQ) ainsi que Patrick Blanchet, directeur de la SHFQ, participeront à un atelier de travail intitulé Forest and the Political Imagination dans le cadre des conférences de l’European Association for Environmental History (UK). Les conférences de cette année sont regroupées sous le thème suivant : Wild Things: ‘Nature’ and the Social Imagination. La présentation aura lieu vendredi le 16 septembre prochain au St Antony’s College de Oxford (UK) :

Titre de la présentation :

The Use of Historical Narratives in Ecosystems Management: The Social Construction of “Pre-Industrial” Forests in Canada:

PRÉSENTATION

Over the last decade, reforms to the forest regime of various Canadian provinces have

brought a discursive construct called the “pre-industrial” forest to the fore. In this paper,

we examine the institutional context in which these historical narratives about the state

and composition of forests prior to the intensification of industrial exploitation are

produced. We also document the role images of “pre-industrial” forest play in shaping

goals for contemporary ecosystems management. Through an empirical analysis of the

production and use of such historical narratives in the province of Quebec, we focus on

the methodological and political issues raised by the translation of historical knowledge

into technical expert knowledge factored into forestry management and operations plans.

How reliable are “pre-industrial” forest portraits? In what ways do the data and narratives

produced by these portraits feed into present-day power relations between a diversity of

actors trying to influence decisions about forest management? We conclude that while the

idea of using environmental historical knowledge to inform our management of forest

ecosystems is important, we need to explore institutional, methodological and narrative

avenues that would allow us to take into account a plurality of forms of historical

knowledge and of relationships to forest environments in order to consider that

management decision based on these narratives have social legitimacy.