Recognising Other Ontologies of TreeScapes (ROOTS) is an interdisciplinary humanities project that addresses the issue of forest heritage across the Nordic nations and seeks to build sustainable forest heritage futures.
Forests are vital elements of Nordic history and identity, and as the climate heats, these forests are under threat; responses tend towards addressing the threats to ecological and economic forest functions, with social and cultural benefit more difficult to categorise. This means forest heritage – particularly that which is less visible or suppressed – can be overlooked in new forest management strategies, with the deep connections to place that have built up slowly over time potentially being lost. ROOTS challenges this approach and foregrounds how Nordic forest heritage is a complex arrangement of histories, natural processes, place-based cultures, and entangled relations – both human and non-human.
ROOTS seeks to recognise forms of cultural heritage that are missed by normative heritage management practices, as well as broaden the definition of what counts for forests and what counts for heritage. Four work packages address key components of forest heritage that are often overlooked or suppressed: Indigenous knowledge, remnants and remains, folklore and mythology, and more-than-human heritage. Through a combination of these work packages and case studies rooted in place across the Nordics, ROOTS makes the case for forest heritage preservation practices that accounts for ambiguity, traces, and more esoteric cultural forms, but also the dynamic nature of heritage in a changing world.
Working closely with stakeholders from cultural institutions, policymakers, and the general public, ROOTS will hold a series of participatory field workshops in key locations, and will facilitate knowledge sharing across borders. This in turn will make recommendations to forest heritage management practices and produce Nordic-added-value. The project will produce a living forest atlas that will engage locally-specific knowledge, and invite democratic participation in building further knowledge of Nordic forest heritage. Overall, ROOTS seeks to build sustainable futures of forests by shifting the definition of what heritage can be, and how it can respond to an increasingly turbulent environment.
Kontakter
