Project
Forest spirituality in Eastern Europe (FORESEE)
FORESEE addresses forest spirituality in post-socialist landscapes, bringing light to oft-intangible aspects of biocultural diversity, and exploring possibilities for their translation into policy and management.
Forests are threaded not only by webs of fluctuating ecological relations and utilitarian land usage, but also generations of overlapping cultural and personal values. These get inscribed onto landscapes in diverse ways and can bind together understandings of a forest as closely as the mycelial mats of fungus that loop across tree roots underfoot. The spiritual aspects of these values are particularly significant to human-forest relations. Although the role of spirituality in forest policy and strategies has been recognised internationally, academic research on spiritual values of forest and forest spirituality is only just slowly emerging. Moreover, Eastern Europe is rarely reflected in this research. FORESEE thus targets the under-investigated role of spirituality in forest management and governance in post-socialist (Central- and South-) Eastern European countries. This research aims to deepen the understanding of forest spirituality in the context of the cultural, religious, and political meanings that forests have in society.
FORESEE specifically examines the potential and importance of 're-storying human-forest relations'. By collecting and mobilising stories related to forests' biocultural diversity in locations like Białowieża Forest in Poland, the project pays attention not only to an often-untaggable element of forest management and protection, but also cultural heritage– spirituality. In doing so, it explores new ways of assessing and communicating forest values in their management and governance during times of ongoing forest conflicts and polarising debates on forest use and conservation. FORESEE will bring together the experiences of local stakeholders, practices of managers and decision makers, and outcomes of engaged academic research in workshops. These workshops will offer space for exchange and mutual learning on the spiritual dimensions of forests, the roles they play in their management and governance, and how they are entangled with societal interests and developments. On the theoretical level, the project contributes to the conceptualisation and theory building around forest spirituality and the spiritual significance of natural spaces.
