Forest Ethnography: “Behind the Scenes”

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Ethnography has increasingly gained prestige in the forest arena, challenging various assumptions about people-nature relations. The importance of participant observation in navigating turbulent forest environments is often overlooked, as demonstrated in the lead author’s dissertation, “Knowledge Integration in Co-management,” a 6-year study with the People of the Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP) published in 2022. We argue that revisiting behind-the-scenes encounters during fieldwork is crucial for addressing criticism of ethnography’s inadequacy in capturing the material and moral conditions that explain human behavior. These insights can enhance the depth and validity of ethnographic research, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the complex dynamics at play. This paper reflects on behind-the-scenes experiences, contextualized by identity and representation, conservation cluster variances, and research ethics. We describe the dynamic nature of events and obstacles of travelling during field work and how forest ethnography behind the scenes was pivotal to navigating them. It concludes by discussing why these components in the use of forest ethnography matter in counteracting fieldwork challenges and what they imply for studying complex co-management settings.