Making a difference: Forest biodiversity, affective capacities, and the micro-politics of expert fieldwork

- We explore the implementation of forest biodiversity protection in Finland.
- Our focus is on the micro-politics and affective implications of expert fieldwork.
- Governing takes place through intensities present in mundane routines.
- Effectiveness of policies is dependent on their affective potential.
- Affective potential is controlled by organisational strategies and choices.

Protecting biodiversity requires the practice of making nature values present in natural resource use decisions. In this article, such practices are explored from the perspective of affective capacities for expert fieldwork in forestry. Affective capacities are broadly acknowledged in the literature on embodied knowing, and by the practitioners themselves, as a necessary condition for knowing nature. We will extend this discussion to the politics involved. Drawing on a case study in Finland, the article points out that professional foresters' affective ways of knowing nature are controlled by institutionalised strategies and practices. Thus, power is exercised through fieldwork, determining how nature can and should be known in forestry. The article concludes that since policy implementation takes place through the intensities present in mundane routines, governance studies would benefit from understanding how the various technologies of governance interact with emergent and embodied capacities.