Third Sociological Forest Symposium

Following the inaugural symposium in Jena in December 2023 and the second meeting in Freiburg in October 2024, the third meeting of German-speaking forest sociology took place in Fulda in October 2025^.1 Dr Sebastian Garbe from the Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Dr Andreas Gutmann from the University of Kassel, Tom Scheunemann from the Fulda University of Applied Sciences and Jenny García Ruales from the University of Erfurt were the organisers.

Over two days, 45 participants discussed the specialisation of the third Forest Symposium "Future and Futures". The aim was to approach the specificity of the forest as an object of research by discussing empirical studies and conceptual considerations on the future and the past. Among other things, the following questions were asked: What role does temporality play in situations of crisis, upheaval and in political debates concerning the forest? Which pasts and which alternative futures (of repair, care, hope or denial) are recognisable? What practical research challenges arise from the complex time scales of the forest and which methodological approaches do justice to them? These questions were addressed in a kick-off discussion, two pitch sessions with short presentations, three workshops and numerous interactive formats for exchange.

The third Sociological Forest Symposium was opened by Prof. Dr Matthias Klemm, Dean of the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences and Professor of Sociology with a focus on active participation, organisation and interculturality, and Prof. Dr Eva Gerharz, Professor of Sociology with a specialisation in globalisation, Head of the Fulda Graduate Centre of Social Sciences and spokesperson for the DFG-funded project Shaping Future Society (SaFe). PD Dr. Stephanie Bethmann and Manuel John (both FVA Freiburg i. Br.), organisers of the 2nd Forest Symposium in Freiburg i. Br. last year, looked back with the participants on the previous meeting and on the network's activities since then, such as regular online coffee talks.

The symposium kicked off with a panel discussion on the topics of the future and forests. The discussion was led by Dr Kathrin Böhling, Head of Sustainable Forest Use at Agora Agrar in Berlin, with Anna Brietzke from the Institute for Social-Ecological Research and Dr Johannes Weidig from HessenForst. The discussion focussed on four thematic areas: Looking to the future, forests and society, change and forestry institutions and finally forests, forest science and sociology - do we need a sociology for the forest? Anna Briezke made it clear that forests are increasingly being instrumentalised for right-wing nationalist interests. She also argued that the advantage of including social and cultural sciences perspectives lies in making marginalised voices visible. Johannes Weidig addressed the fact that solutions for a climate-adapted forest must always be adapted, as there is no solution for the forest that works today and will still work in a hundred years' time. He sees the importance of a sociology of the forest in the methods and approaches that are not part of the core business of foresters, but which are needed to be able to categorise and understand the various interests in the forest.

Two pitch sessions took place in the afternoon of the first day, in which participants had the opportunity to present current or past research projects within 3 minutes. The pitches of the first session focussed on the topic "Forest, Future, Crisis: Perspectives on Temporality Regimes in Transition". Daniel Bräunling (Black Forest National Park) kicked things off with the question: What is the future? He argued that a negotiation of the future is needed in the discourse on biodiversity in order to avoid inhibiting, negative constructions of the future. He understood the future as a space for positive futures, for desirable ways of life, with the aim of generating biodiversity-related, sustainable practices from this discourse. The second pitch, presented by Jan Zumoberhaus (University of Freiburg im Üechtland), focussed on the future forest as a possible forest. The pitch questioned the linear connection between past and future, along which the present moves forward. Instead, a look at forests and climate change enables a different conception of time and temporality, in which the future can take different paths, resulting in a field of possibilities. Dr Juliane Schumacher (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) pitched changing pro-ductions of the future and used her research in the Maâmora forest, a large cork oak forest in Morocco, to show how linear approaches to thinking the future are increasingly being replaced by more fluid accesses. Ann-Kristin Kühnen from the Technical University of Dresden reported in her pitch on the topic of forests as technonatures: forest damage as an irritation of modern nature-technology relationships. She understands the technified forest as forest formations that have emerged in the modern age and are characterised by the fact that they are actively shaped and materialised by technical processes. These modern forest formations are thus strongly characterised by practices of hybridisation of nature and technology. She therefore proposes to understand the forest as techno-nature, which means thinking the futures of the forest not despite or against the technisation of the forest, but through its technisation.

The pitches in the second session focussed on the topic of "Conflicts over sustainability: on the ambivalence and transformation of social forest relations". First, Ronja Mi-koleit and PD Dr Stephanie Bethmann from the Forest Research Institute Baden-Württemberg presented their new research project (Forest) Nature Planning - Planning Cultures in Climate Change. They are looking at the planning paradox, according to which nature is not predictable, but management requirements demand predictability. This, in turn, is complicated by socio-ecological transformations in climate change. Dr Alejandro Esguerra (Bielefeld University) will then present his book The Politics of Beginning- The Origin of Private Authority in the Process of Translation. The book analyses the founding of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and poses the question of how it is possible to create new institutions for the planet. To answer this question, the book sheds light on how governance knowledge is translated. Mia Unverzagt and Jolanda Jerg from the University of Freiburg i. Br. present their research project WWW 4.0, Knowledge about the Changing Forest. They are looking at different (implicit and explicit) forms of knowledge in the forest and exploring the question of how the use of AI applications influences forms of knowledge and ways of working in the forest. In the last pitch, Daniel Haudenschild (University of Kassel) focused on sustainability narratives to legitimise the "green" A49 motorway through the Dannenröder Forest. With the help of sustainability narratives such as compensatory measures or environmental compatibility as well as the argument that it is a shorter alternative to other motorways, the concept of sustainability is instrumentalised in order to give the motorway added value. In this way, the expansion of transport-intensive and fossil-fuelled infrastructure is supported under the guise of sustainability.

The second day of the event began with a pop-up library on sociological forest research. Participants were invited to bring along publications on forest sociology that were of interest to them and to fill the library in order to start a dialogue. The library also offered the opportunity for participants to exhibit and present their own publications - also to take a look "behind the scenes" at how the topic of forests can be published from a social sciences perspective.

In three workshops offered, participants also had the opportunity to delve deeper into various topics. The workshop offered by Dr Alissa Starodub (Fulda University of Applied Sciences) on the topic of science fiction in the forest - future-oriented participatory action research dealt with how human and non-human creatures could live in and with the forest in the future, what new forms and ways of life could emerge from occupying a forest to protect it from deforestation and what future care work around the forest and sustainable forestry could look like. In the workshop held by Dr Susanne Koch (Technical University of Munich), Ronja Mikoleit (Forstliche Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalt Baden-Württemberg), Anna Brietzke (Institute for Social-Ecological Research), Julia Böcker (Leuphana University of Lüneburg) and Stefanie Steinebach (Rottenburg University of Applied Sciences), research/methodological reflection in sociological forest research was discussed at three tables on the topics of disciplinary positionings, epistemic cultures and institutions, external positionings in the field and professionalism and responsibility. They addressed challenges, the analysis of data, publication processes and possible opportunities. A third workshop with the topic Masculinities in Forestry: Men, Forests and Change, developed by Dr Anna Saave (University of Freiburg) and conducted by Lina Bax and Francesca Sangiovanni (both Fulda University of Applied Sciences), invited participants to explore changing masculinities in forestry and their significance for dealing with climate-related challenges. In an interactive "data party", empirical material, personal experiences and anecdotal evidence were analysed together. The participants discussed the breaking up of professional role models, the backlash against the advance of women into male-dominated areas, as well as the contradiction that arises from the fact that forestry is difficult to control and at the same time attracts certain forms of masculinity that presuppose a notion of male dominance and the images of masculinity derived from it.

The degree of the symposium was formed by the strategy workshop, in which the participants worked on four different clusters. They discussed upcoming courses and joint activities, output and outreach, the future of the network and the organisation of the next Waldsymposium. Joint publication projects, the visibility of the network and the recruitment of new members were also discussed.

The email distribution list soz-wald@listserv.dfn.de, which was set up after the first Forest Symposium, will continue to be used to share information, event announcements, publications, etc. Anyone interested can register at this link https://www.listserv.dfn.de/sympa/subscribe/soz-wald?previous_action=info.

In 2026, the fourth Sociological Forest Symposium will take place on 8 and 9 October in Frankfurt am Main. The diversity of the topics of the pitches, workshops and the topics discussed at the third Sociological Forest Symposium once again highlighted the need for networking and further exchange between the disciplines required for social sciences forest research.

By: Lina Bax (Fulda University of Applied Sciences)

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1 The third Sociological Forest Symposium was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG - FIP 27 - 528585458), the Fulda Graduate Centre of Social Sciences at
Fulda University of Applied Sciences and the Just Transitions specialist field at the University of Kassel.