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Forest ethnography: An approach to study the environmental history and political ecology of urban forests

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Abstract

A landscape succession paradigm has shaped much of our understanding about the processes of forest emergence and transformation in the United States. Drawing heavily from theory and method in environmental history, this paradigm has focused attention on the role of landscape-scale shifts in land use and land cover in the production of forests. The geography of cities is patchy, dynamic and heterogeneous, with change and differences occurring at much smaller scales (e.g. Jacobs 1961; Clay 1973) compared to coarse scale of stand replacing successions affecting rural forests (Grove et al. Ecosyst Health and Sustain 2(9):e01239, 2016; Pickett et al. Urban Ecosyst 20(1):1–14, 2017). Therefore, trying to understand how urban forests came to be, as well as what they are, requires a research approach that is specific to the land use dynamics of cities and attentive to the social life of urban forests. In response to this methodological gap, this paper describes a research approach called “forest ethnography,” which we are piloting in Baltimore, Maryland as part of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES), one of the National Science Foundation’s urban Long-term Ecological Research Programs (LTER). As we describe, we propose that an urban forest ethnography approach can contribute to our understanding of both forest environmental history and urban political ecology.

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Notes

  1. Matthew Baker, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, led the forest patch analyses for (Avins 2013), which was supported by the City of Baltimore’s Office of Sustainability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Laura A. Ogden

  2. Ecology, Evolution, Ecosystems & Society, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

    Carissa Aoki

  3. Baltimore Field Station, US Forest Service, Baltimore, MD, USA

    J. Morgan Grove & Nancy Falxa Sonti

  4. National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Annapolis, MD, USA

    William Hall & Dexter Locke

  5. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY, USA

    Steward T. A. Pickett

  6. Baltimore Green Space, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Miriam Avins & Katie Lautar

  7. Center for Urban Research and Education, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    John Lagrosa

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  1. Laura A. Ogden
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  2. Carissa Aoki
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  3. J. Morgan Grove
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Correspondence to Laura A. Ogden.

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Ogden, L.A., Aoki, C., Grove, J.M. et al. Forest ethnography: An approach to study the environmental history and political ecology of urban forests. Urban Ecosyst 22, 49–63 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-018-0744-z

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