Creating forests with words - A review of forest-related discourse studies

The article is based on a comprehensive survey of sixty-six journal articles, book chapters, books and online publications referring to the terms “forest” and “discourse” in the title or key words. The results suggest that forest-related discourse research may benefit from a stronger emphasis on the politics of discourse. In particular, questions of “where” and “by whom” discourses are circulated and institutionalised could provide valuable insights into forest governance. In order to arrive at these insights, however, more theoretical and methodological rigour and innovation seem to be required. Consequently, this review suggests that forest-related discourse research would benefit from (1) relating new work to the most recent discourse research conducted in different disciplines and specialisations, (2) boldly testing different available discourse lenses from political science as well as other disciplines, and (3) getting creative in adjusting those lenses (theoretically and methodologically).