Overview
This essay begins by introducing the focus on environment in science and technology studies. It introduces modern science with its magic and consolidation of power in society. It sketches out the complex process of co evolution of science, technology and society and that application of science to social and political restructuring. The assumptions of nature and humans, the object and subject that underpin the notion and model of forest management and conservation that has existed since the colonial period are mentioned. This dichotomy continues till today. However, the existing model of conservation includes components of the cognitive representation concept of Shiv Vishvanathan. The essay traces out the mainstream development discourse and moves on to show changes in development ideas and the coming of counter-development. The assumptions of science and technology that are inherent in both these views of development are outlined along with the application of these ideas to forest management that has moved from a top-down approach to a bottom-up one. The transition within counter-development over time, the shift in focus from participation as a means to participation (of local communities and especially those marginalized within the local communities) as an end, as an empowering goal in and by itself is shown. How the structure of JFM was modified with research drawing from various gender analysis tools and frameworks is shown. The strengths and potential of JFM are outlined. The critique of JFM that came with the third step in development discourse, post development is also noted. However, the criticism remains in the realm of ideas and is not pragmatic. After tracing out the women, development and JFM and providing a view of ground realities, the essay shifts its focus once again to science. While the assumptions underlying the current conservation model derive from science, the model is more complex today. Science is no longer the exclusive tradition that governs and regulates forests that are deliberated upon by a host of actors other than scientists. The paper concludes by bringing out the position of science policy in contemporary forest management, that is joint forest management.
Science and Technology Studies and Environment
Steven Yearly writes that since the last decade when the Science and Technology Studies Handbook carries a paper on environment, the importance of environment and nature for science and technology analysis community has expanded.[1] STS authors are increasingly writing on environment and new developments such as biotechnology, climate change, human reproduction, genomes, GM crops, patenting, stem cell research, recurring epidemics such as kala-azar (in geographically limited areas of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Uttarpradesh in India), swine flu, have created new hybrids of science and nature, paving the need for science and technology studies with its social science analytical tools that help bridge the field realities on the ground with cutting edge research through policies that are participatory. According to Steven Yearly (2008), scientific knowledge is indispensable for contemporary environmental policies since science offers to tell us how nature is and since plants and animals cannot speak for themselves there is a need for environmental impact assessments.
Policy: science, technology, society
Policy is understood as a blue print or a set of guidelines for decision making. It is like a web that tries to adapt itself to address the needs of each group in society and to bring out efficiency, effectiveness while ensuring social justice or equality in with dealing with people. Policy is the bridge like planning, from where we are to where we want to do. Policies are made by a variety of stakeholders with differing power relations and not all stakeholders are always properly represented. According to Yesudian (2009) policy is the intent of the government to do something. Policies try to address a dynamic reality with a futuristic orientation. Co-evolution of science, technology and society are recurring themes in science and technology studies. Science and technology have tremendously transformed the way we live and have since the time of positivism occupied a central place in society.
Magic of science
Science and its applications have led to path-breaking inventions that have changed the face of life on earth from the wheel, to carts, to bicycles to trucks, ships, aircrafts in the domain of transport. Scientists have innovated upon these technologies and made state of art appliances, things, instruments that have enhanced material comfort and eased domestic living to a previously unimaginable degree. These innovations have been diffused to the developing world, passed on to industry to popularize and market to the human population. Our faith in the epistemic superiority of science is not completely baseless. But it cannot be the only factor in the evolution of human civilization.
Power in society: science
Sri Aurobindo's begins his major work titled The Human Cycle with modern science's obsession with “greatness of its physical discoveries” and “idea of the sole existence of matter” which extends to base upon the study of physical data, the study of mind, spirit, and the working of humans and nature for which “psychology is as important as any of the physical sciences”[2]
According to Feyerabend, objectivity and rationality that are features of an empirical science are just some values alongside others. The jargon and writing style of academics fools others and themselves by making everyone believe that the academicians actually know more/ better than anyone else. Having contributed to the power consolidated by scientists and science, and convinced everyone including scientists that they are rational and objective and that these are truer virtues than others - the two virtues become dangerous for society since they “colonize other traditions by the “justification”/rhetoric of their own superiority and legitimacy. Science is also viewed as a threat to democracy because democracy is defended by liberal and rational intellectuals whose definition of equality had been equal access to one tradition of the “White Man”(Feyerabend, 1978:76) instead of equality of all traditions.[3]
Feyerabend proposes that expert opinions can contain mistakes that can be spotted by common people. “Science prevails only because the show has been rigged in it's favour (Feyerabend, 1978:102). In the Free society envisioned by Feyrabend, all traditions (instead of all individuals) would have equal rights, and have equal access to the centre of power in a free society. Such a society would be freer since all traditions with their unique characteristics would have a chance to contribute their bit to the perfection of a society with it's plural traditions.
Dominant view of science
The dominant view of science that is associated with Francis Bacon, Descartes, Karl Popper has remained relatively stable across time, energizing scientific institutions, research and materializing in myriad technologies. The term scientific revolution was coined in Alexandre Koyre in 1943[4] and popularized by Herbert Butterfield through his influential book “The Origins of Modern Science” in 1949. Thomas Kuhn's 1962 publication, ‘The structure of Scientific Revolutions' further reinforced the concept according to I. B. Cohen as quoted by B. J. T. Dobbs in 1994[5]. Since science was a new worldview, something that came into being it brought with it a new way of viewing the world, a new episteme with its underlying philosophy and assumptions.
Science is a rational, objective, neutral body of knowledge about the natural world collected through the scientific method. The scientific method is valid, verifiable, replicable, objective, systematic, predictable, practiced by experts. Technology is the : application of science (invention, innovation, diffusion) and it also is assumed to be rational, neutral, and objective. Sri Aurobindo in a poem titled ‘A Vision of Science' celebrates how with the emergence of science “storms” came to be “foretold” and “heavens” were “scaled”. How matter enjoyed the limelight and “Even mysticism shrank out mystified”. The emergence of modern science has been parallel with a shift away from religion and other indegenious systems of knowledge and ways of organizing life. Herbert Butterfield's ‘The Origins of Modern Science' published in 1949 is a landmark, in the history and philosophy of sciences which supports the dominant view of the middle ages[6]. Herbert Butterfield narrates how rapidly and irreversibly science transformed from the 16th till the 18th centuries, how reason, empirical science based on sense experimentation and mathematics with a new worldview and breathed in an infinite universe, how science as emerged redefining life, making humans escape from medieval Christendom.
Scientific knowledge is made of that which is measured and captured through sense perception. It separates the knower (the objective scientists who is also divorced from emotion and biases) from the known, the object of knowledge- the physical world. This in the dominant view of science nature and environment are an object to be studied by the human scientific mind (subject).
Science applied to society in colonial cum modern era
The idea of modern science comprises a strand in the discourse of modernity that arose in the modern era post Enlightenment in Europe and largely proceeds after renaissance. Avijit Pathak includes in the core values of modernity, the spirit of freedom from orthodoxy and tradition, critical consciousness, a questioning zeal, mobility, change, innovation, a movement to democratize society, incorporate choice with the autonomy of individuals.[7]
According to Alastair Pennycook the concept of colonialism is un problematic at one level at which colonialism refers to “settlement of territory in one region or country by people from outside that area with control over the new territory generally remaining in the hands of the country from which the colonizers have come.”[8] Colonialism could be seen as the manifestation of the ideology of imperialism, a system in which colonizers from outside grip the colonized lands with their economic and political tentacles, and their people with cultural and psychological tentacles. Alistair Pennycook views colonialism as “a primary site of cultural production” (ibid., p. 39) and Edward Said (1993) added the dimension of ideology to the profile of the colonizers by which the colonized want and need to be colonized.[9] According to Paulo Palladino and Michael Worboys, mention that Lewis Pyenson, a historian of science has noted that imperialism comes in different forms- cultural, social, scientific, political, economic. They bring into the discussion, the idea of civilizing mission with military, economic, technological dominance and exploitation.[10] The process of colonialism temporally began around the late 15th century in the world and decolonization can be vaguely pinned around the late 19th century.
Benefits of science and scientific method came to be seen as valuable for being used upon the social world for social and political engineering. As this view of science was solidifying, social structure of the world was being reshaped by the outlook of imperialism. Science and technology were used on nature and society to create a better world.
Drawing from Mark Harrisson and Mc Leod's ideas (as quoted by Dhruv Raina and Irfan Habib) on the concept of colonial science, the following features of the colonial science are noted. Colonial science is the science practiced in colonies, it was directed by the colonizers (state and East India company) in India. Colonial science was perceived as “derivative, instrumentalist, exploitative, restricted to fact gathering and evading the pursuit of theoretical sciences”.[11]
Science and Nature: Forests in Colonial era
Colonialism as Deepak Kumar writes used science and technology, instrumentally to pursue its ends. The scientific grid was used to achieve goals of exploitation, economic gain by the colonizers for themselves. Nature was seen as object and separated from the humans according to Bruno Latour in this modern world of purifications.
Further, nature came to be viewed as a resource to be exploited. Scientific management of resources and nature, trees and animals came to view nature as a entity to be managed. Conservation was initiated and human settlements were displaced from forests that were to be the habitat of the non human. The colonial government in India created reserve forests, those forest areas where no human activities are permitted since anthropogenic interference is linked with destruction of forests. Human beings of all categories were cast as enemies of nature the idea of coexistence was relegated by scientific management the way science superimposed and shadowed traditional systems of knowledge. Some humans were alienated from forests they had lived with for generations. Commercially lucrative species were planted and the forests department came to view itself as the guardian of forests, considering encroachment by forests dwellers as a crime.
Development: mainstream
Development as a term connotes a value-laden, planned, deliberate process that aims to reach a certain ideal social state. The idea contrasts with imminent development which is spontaneous (Maiava, 2001 cited in Maiava 2002), indigenous and organic (Grego, 1998, 2001, cited in Maiava 2002). Change and transformation, other concepts from the same bag, signify a more generic, random and potentially multidirectional, unplanned transition. They are closer to interpretations of ‘imminent development', where “what people are doing anyway, in response to change, intervention or despite it, comprises the content of the development process(Collins1956, cited Maiava 2002).
Modernization, post- Enlightenment, Westernization from the 1930's onwards may be identified as pioneers of the development discourse, and W.W. Rostrow's linier model of progressive growth aptly exemplifies what is implied by the development jargon in mainstream parlance.
Critically tracing the origins of mainstream development discourse, Escobar mentions that ‘the traditional' became synonymous with ‘the backward' and ‘indigenous social institutions' and ‘ways of life' that had to be modernized to mirror the western nations despite resentment and resistance of those who were to be transformed in this way Escobar (1995:4, ibid).
Growth touches an economic pitch, while progress, yet another term often synonymously used with development carries a value judgment that echoes of the ‘morality' of the “white man's burden”. It implicitly assumes a linear path on which a progressive accession is desirable (Shanin, Theodor, 1983, cited in Rahnema and Bawtree, 1997). Division into these perfect and imperfect states carries the implication that the imperfections have to be transcended. Underdeveloped, backward, and evolving are words that carry differing weights and can be ranked as they depart from a nominal scale that depicts difference and diversity qualitatively. The shift brought about by the idea of progress is towards a ranked hierarchy, a dichotomy where only one way of being is desirable. The one way which mainstream development deems desirable is the way of economic growth of modernization and a progressively higher standard of living which goes also with a shift away from traditional ways of life, celebration of cultures, indigenous systems towards a homogeneous ideal.
The perspectives within development thinking lay a broad spectrum. Approaches to development have differed over time and in their view of the content and aim of ‘development' and the idea of who is to be developed and how.
Development (mainstream): Science and Technology
Mainstream development force is driven by a faith in science and technology which anchor material progress (Escobar, 1995:36). Technology is seen as neutral, (implicitly assumed as a positive) instrument to create socio-cultural orders (Morande, 1984; Garcia de la Huerta, 1992 cited in Escobar, 1995:36). These socio cultural orders which are deemed desirable are reflected in ideologies that place exclusive faith in economic growth, and material standard of living.
Women and Development
The women and development approach viewed development with an economic focus and scientific-technological emphasis as inherently positive and beneficial and proposed to add women as a category to the mainstream development benefits that were bypassing them from 1930s till around 1960s.
Development (mainstream): Forest management
Inheriting the Colonial view of forests as raw materials to be exploited and processed the government of India initiated state forestry programs in 1970's. Promoting commercial species like eucalyptus, these top-down channels failed in restoring forests and in meeting people's needs (Agarwal,1986). Madhu Sarin mentions the 14 decades of custodial forest management in India that were characterized by conflicts between the forest department and forest dwelling communities and during which the forest dwellers' rights over their lands and forests were persistently eroded. The disempowerment, and displacement of people and the disintegration of community-based resource management traditions have also been highlighted (Guha, 1991; Gadgil and Guha, 1992; Kelkar and Nathan, 1991; Fernandes and Menon, 1987).
Resource, raw materials to be exploited and processed systematically and scientifically (rationally)
Counter Development
The dominant development model has been questioned. Alternative definitions of development which are premised on sustainability, social and inter-generational equity, inclusion, concern for the environment from a non anthropocentric view of the world and which challenge the negative effects of the dominant development paradigm have been explored by various researchers and activists such as Norberg-Hodge (1991).
Bottom-up development that manifests as the institutionalization of participation as a means for ensuring efficiency of a project's execution has been used to promote the idea of and substantiate the rationale for counter development. The corresponding anti poverty, and equity approaches see development was growth that must benefit the poor and marginalized women and men in visible, practical ways.
Counter Development: science and technology
The dominant mainstream economic development, linear growth model is seen as channeling the world into a narrow dungeon of monoculture through indiscriminate application of the ‘rational' science and technology which hold negative implications for the environment, poor, and women and other marginalized groups. Counter-development proposes celebration of diversity over homogeneity, encouraging creative alternatives (Shiva, 1991)
In the ideologies of counter development, “Science seen as an expert field that would feed into the process of policy-making rather than be the exclusive ideology that would authoritatively govern the forest policy by some groups of people.”
The dominant view of science persists but is less intense and is critiqued by an anti-science minority.
Women in Development
Esther Boserup's milestone critique of the impact of “development” on women and emphasis on women's contribution to development went with a general dissatisfaction with trickle down approaches. It brought into the limelight both “basic needs” and the category of women for equitable development that was facilitated by the international climate since the women's question was on the international agenda since 1975, the International Women's Year. From the efficiency approach we see a trend towards roping in the participation of women to enhance the efficiency by getting the women from recipient communities to take ownership of development projects.
Preparing the ground for JFM: tryst with counter development
The mid 1970's brought problems of forest protection such as decline in quantity of wood available for cremation in Gamtalav village in Gujarat and politicians have been quoted as saying “Cut a tree and vote for me” and aiding timber smugglers. Mid 1980's saw more violent clashes between the forest department and forest communities (Mishra,1998). However, some villagers and forest officers unofficially started successfully managing forests by relying on participation (Poffenberger and McGean, 1996). Against the emerging backdrop of the dominant 1980's worldview of the governments as facilitators and not dictators of positive change and the rising importance of markets within a liberal environment, the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) brought into picture the term sustainable development and the concern for environment.
Joint Forest management: Forest management and Counter development (Participation as a means)
Joint Forest Management that was influenced by counter development ideas of efficiency in management of resources by roping in participation of local communities involves broadly two stakeholders: The State, represented by the powerful forest department and Local communities that are assumed to be homogeneous, single units and may be represented by village level committees called van panchayats that are especially formed for the purpose and include representatives of the democratically elected Panchayati Raj Institutions. The Indian National forest policy of 1988, shifted away from the focus on commercial usage and favoured environmental protection, meeting the fuel and fodder needs and “Minor Forest Produce[12]” instead. A massive people's movement that involved women was to achieve it's objectives. (Government of India,1988). Effective patrols that involve women to catch women so that men are not accused of misbehavior and the misuse of physical strength can also be placed in the efficiency approach paradigm.
Fifteen Indian states covering 74.6% of the country's 75 million ha of public forest land (and 91.4% of the country's tribal population) have since 1988, initiated JFM (Joint Forest Management) partnerships with local communities. According to one estimate, by mid-1992 more than 1.5 million ha of forest land (about 2% of India's forest area) were already being protected (largely through the joint management programme) by more than 10,000 community institutions (both formal and informal) in ten states (Singh and Khare, 1993).
Participating villages under joint forest management protect the forests by forming their own committees or groups according to membership and structure specified by the state forest department which exclusively holds the right to cancel JFM agreements. The villagers have access to most NTFPs (Non Timber Forest Produce) and about 25 to 50 percent share of poles and timber at the final harvest. Different Indian states have revised and tailored the specific clauses and benefit sharing deals. The purpose of co-management here is linked with promoting the sustainability of forests, and regulating use for promoting conservation for state defined public interest.
Forests commons: primary stakeholders
Mostly the poor and women depend on the forest commons for sustenance. In the villages of Jodha's study, 84% to 100% of the rural poor depended on common property resources for fuel, fodder and food while the corresponding proportion of rich farmers did not exceed 20% (except in very dry villages of Rajasthan). Also, intermediate categories of farm households depended on forest resources more than the rich (Jodha, 1986). Systematically institutionalizing the commons which lie at an intersection of the economy, society and environment, sweeps away a key social, political and livelihood space from the marginalized people (Anuradha Patti,2006). Facts highlighting how JFM forces the poor to not heat bath water in winter (Aggarwal), subtly appeal to the equity paradigm. In Andhra Pradesh, India 30% of the forest user group's executive committee members must be women.
While a certain idea of participation (for efficient conservation) has been institutionalized through Joint Forest Management, the dominant idea of development as growth that must practically benefit the poor and marginalized could thus not be very effectively manifested through the Joint Forest Management in it's initial form. Articles on Joint Forest Management like Bina Aggarwal's (1991) that draw upon the GRF (Gender Roles Framework)[13] and report details of women and men's activities at the household level, before and after introduction of JFM mention the differential access to and control over resources and the constraints faced by women and the poor in accessing the benefits of, and being undervalued as potential contributors to, JFM as a development intervention. The example of JFM committees relying exclusively on men's knowledge of tree species and overlooking women's knowledge of biodiversity is relevant here.
Turn in counter development: participation as means to participation as an end
Through JFM, participation was institutionalized as a means for efficient forest management. Later, it was modified to factor in participation as an end in itself as a goal that is empowering for people who participate in the process of managing the forests. This is especially relevant for women and the marginalized who can by the intervention of JFM be provided platforms and public spaces to voice their opinions and to have their ideas represented and considered. To what extent this ideal is utilized remains to be seen but the potential of using JFM structure, institutions for empowerment remains.
Development as Empowerment and participation as an end in itself
Participatory development discourse has traversed ahead and has around the 1990s acquired the dimension of “empowerment”. Actions and interventions in the era of participatory development have aimed to increase the involvement of socially and economically marginalized people in decision making over their own lives (Gujjit and Shah 1998 cited in Patti, Anuradha (2006). This approach of participation considers participation in decision making, self determination as an ‘empowering' means and end in itself. Empowerment involves increasing the people's capacities to transform their lives and it is more than merely inviting people to partake in needs assessment, and decision making (Young,1993; Gujit and Shah,1998). It has redefined the previous purely instrumental nature of participation in development. This paradigm of viewing development as empowerment is congruent with a truly bottom up approach as opposed to the conventional top down implementation of development policies and programmes. The recipients of bottom-up, participatory development approaches direct development themselves (Neela Mukherjee, 1993). Extending the tentacles of democracy to include persons on the peripheries of society and communities, it includes also the normative aspect of empowerment, of enlarging a person's capabilities to function and stretching the range of a person's life options.
Gender and Development
The Gender and Development approach views development as complex process, influenced by socio-economic and political factors that aims at substantive equality and social justice. The premise of gender and development approach is that communities are heterogeneous. Individual participants in the dynamics of development are placed differentially along the matrix of identity and privilege which is not equitable even if superficially equal and use of the term gender does not correspond to formal equality but is a step towards creating substantive gender justice. Cells of the identity-privilege matrix largely comprise of race, class, caste, gender, tribe, religion, region and opportunities regarding the quality of education and livelihoods amidst other factors relevant within a particular social context. Inclusion and integration into the process and benefits of development then, is differential.
Naila Kabeer's Social Relations framework[14] involves a detailed analysis of gender relations in the household, community, and market institutions and combines the strengths of all the previous approaches. Her category of gender transformative policy shows reconstitution of relations, activities, and resources for a socially just world. In depth analysis of power structures within institutions would enable us to get an idea of socio political factors at work. The social relations framework considers the power inequalities and relations as they are in institutions of community, market and household. It sees power as a zero sum game, for women, and the poor to access forest resources and make decisions to get control over the social space of the common resources, those previously in power, largely the men would have to give up some of their power. This pragmatic approach seems practical and outcome based while it is at a tangent from the feminist conception of power a infinite. Woolcock's (1998) social integration framework indicates the degree to which community members provide each other with services, resources and opportunities for individual and collective advancement. In using participation to create development, the integration of gender awareness is the magic key for transformation.
Carolyn Moser's (1989) triple roles analysis of women and men's and community management activities at household, and community levels incorporates the role of tangible and intangible resources. Women's practical needs that are congruent with the current division of labour and are articulated by women (such as access to fuel wood for reducing their work burden) are distinguished from women's strategic gender interests that help in gender sensitive planning and alter the skewed distribution of power between the sexes in the long run (Molyneux, 1987).
Women within Joint Forest Management
Various available researches on JFM from a gender lens focus on how conservation and sustainable use can be effective if both men and women contribute. How women within heterogeneous village communities are bypassed within seemingly participatory forest management arrangements is highlighted by Binal Aggarwal (2001). A study that shows how after an unmarried woman in Gonduru, became the daughter-inlaw of the same village, she was constrained by socio-cultural norms to speak at the village meeting (Mishra,1998) casts light upon the complexity of differences within the category of women.
From the vantage point contemporary development palimpsest, building on empowerment, gender and development approaches the constraints faced by women in JFM roping in the politics of participation as analyzed by various researchers are:
Therefore, socio-cultural norms, political and economic spaces, existing gendered division of labour, unequal power relations among different individuals and groups in communities hinder use of JFM as empowering tool and an effective development process.
Analyzing institutions with the tool of social relations framework, we notice how the forest department is very subtly sexist when women are asked to not come in evenings to meet forest officers and when their opinion is not heard by the elderly men of their communities. An analysis of multiple identities and their interaction at the level of the community helps to note the patterns of unequal social relations that have been institutionalized in the idea of JFM which assumes a community to be a homogeneous group and individuals to be abstracted from their social contexts. The idea of JFM as it was introduced therefore eluded substantive equality.
An assessment of strategic interests that would favourably transform gender relations, has led to modifications in the rules of JFM participation for including women on a public platform and decision-making space that has been traditionally denied to them. The 1991 Gujarat resolution requires each village-level forest management committee to have at least two women. In Madhya Pradesh, India, one male and one female from each member household are on the JFM committee and at least three women including one from a landless household are required by law to be on the executive committee which demonstrates the application of strategic gender needs at the policy level.
An ideal JFM project would involve:
Post Development
Development itself is a dynamic multifaceted term and what it connotes and contains often varies with how it is defined, interpreted or practiced. Definitions differ along time period and context and are not absolutely black or white in their perception of technology, progress, growth, equity, justice, and sustainability. Mainstream actors, post-developmentalists and counter-developmentalists refer to the same jargon. A strand in the development discourse is traced to Ivan Illich, by Rehnema and Bawtree (1997). The work of Ravina Aggarwal (2004) reflects a similar shade, in Ladakh while theorists like Escobar (1995) are largely critiquing the very notion of and interventions based on ‘development' as well as of what Norberg- Hodge (1991) terms ‘counter development' (Rahnema and Bawtree, 1997). The bottom up and seemingly participatory and empowering development'[16] is according to post development theorists, yet another ideology that colonizes the minds, and governs the actions of it's beneficiaries. It strengthens the invisible clutch of the high income countries and while judging the third world and offers no voice or space to the indigenous people and local communities (Escobar, 1995, cited in Maiava, Susan, 2002 ).
Counter development too is not neutral nor inherently positive. It is a value laden ideological process which is directed towards achieving certain goals in certain ways for certain people by certain people. Counter development is therefore inherently political. Often those who decide what must develop, how and towards which ends are those who hold legitimate power like governments. Escobar (1995: 43) highlights ‘expert power' in the universe of deliberate institutionalization of development, the impact of which on beneficiaries he views negatively. The radicals have been critiqued for their volley of criticisms of current counter-development interventions which do not accompany concrete suggestions for alternative actions, practical interventions but cloud instead the realm of ideas.
Development jargon brought in among many concepts, the idea of rights which individuals hold by the virtue of being citizens. The entire notion of an abstract state and the invisible, reciprocal contract of duties and opportunities, guarantees and privileges which link the individual to the state come into the picture. Rights discourse has shifted from civil and political rights to social and economic and cultural rights which align more closely with community and group rights. Group rights go along with common resources which figure in lives of communities following traditional, indigenous lifestyle. Relationships within the community in a geographic location which enjoyed accessing opportunities and using resources by consultative distribution within itself are increasingly been replaced by an individualistic way of life, which is also being transferred through the streams of counter-development.
Joint Forest management: a pragmatic alternative
The very concept of joint forest management is paradoxical. Common resources like forests, are a problematic arena as they do not yield as smoothly to individual ownership and group rights are complex (Patti, Anuradha,2006; Jodha,1992). The persons dependent most on forests tend to loose out as forest get converted to jointly managed resource, especially with differential social, economic and political power between the state and local communities. There is a need to bring in substantive equality recognizing power differentials of class, caste, gender, knowledge to the extent possible.
The notion of development and of Joint Forest Management as a development intervention, offers opportunity and power and has to be carefully defined and used vigilantly to optimize it's benefits, utilize it's potential and to avoid as far as possible the drawbacks of development and it's potential negative implications for communities.
JFM and Women: The Ground Reality
Over 50 developing countries have adopted participatory forest protection programmes according to an FAO survey (Agarwal and Gibson). Bina Agrawal's typology of participation when applied to most studies across a span of countries shows that women are not even nominal or token participants in Joint Forest Management. The next level of consultative participation would be when women are consulted for advice and opinion. Another level is activity specific where they decide and take on sub tasks like patrolling. The goal, of an empowering notion is of active - interactive participation. Here, the local community members, especially the marginalized people discuss, decide and their ideas are considered, there is feedback and personal growth as well as meaningful contribution to the development activity. Against the broad aim of efficiency and the involvement of socially and economically marginalized people in decision making over their own lives, Joint Forest Management has institutionalized “participation” in a certain way and recent accommodations to include women in JFM committees are a step in broadening the definition of participation. But, merely placing women on local project committees can do little to make them heard or bring them into committee activities in a meaningful way (White,1996).
Clearly the present picture of Joint Forest Management is far from the ideal and while it is surprising that studies across the world are showing similar patterns of participatory exclusions, eerily these are persisting over time despite development interventions and women are stuck at the nominal participation level. At most the shift has been to gender specific forms of policy. This takes us to post development thinkers like Rahnema (1990) who believe that participatory empowerment approaches to development do little to actually change established power structures.
Women and Environment
The relatively recent women and environment approach like the ecofeminist ideology, draws links between women's oppression by men and the exploitation of nature by humans. Women are perceived to be inherently conservationist (Shiva, 1990) because their chores involve a deeper interaction with nature. It essentializes and supports gender role differentiation and threatens women's strategic gender interests by overemphasizing practical needs. Still, the very existence of the perspective itself, with it's unique standpoint is an achievement, for the world's most marginalized women. It reveals complexities within the global women's movements and development discourses and brings the unique position of the developing world's women into the limelight. The strength of the women and environment discourse has considerably contributed to the formation of the platform occupied by women of the developing world from the vantage point of which development discourse on natural resource conservation and usage must be addressed in the contemporary world.
Development, Joint Forest Management and a Gender Lens
Weaving together the strands of development and Forest Management, Joint Forest Management appears to be a pragmatic tool of counter development since post development remains within the realm of ideas. Looking at patterns of the “development and forest management's possibilities” weave through a gender lens, the potential of addressing the strategic gender interests and substantive social justice concerns of marginalized individuals and groups within local communities is apparent. The structure and implementation of Joint Forest Management can be tailored to operate effectively and efficiently and respond to local realities while the horizons of post development devise future alternatives.
Conclusion: Science Policy and Joint Forest Management?
We have moved from application of systematic, scientific management of forest resources to Joint Forest Management and then modified and transformed JFM itself to tailor it to the complex social realities and unequal power relations in society. As forest management blended with society, science, neutrality, objectivity and rationality got integrated with politics, irrationality, subjectivity, community dynamics, participation and development.
We continue to operate within the paradigm of science's view of nature that has drawn a boundary between subject and object, between human who is to conserve and use and nature which is to be conserved and used. within this paradigm of conservation, we have built spaces for people and traditions that would otherwise have been overshadowed and disappeared over time. JFM created such a space by including the local communities whose traditional knowledge, understanding of their forest and environment that is both empirical ad dynamic would be considered in decision-making. This structure reflects the cognitive representation concept of Shiv Vishvanathan who illustrates policymaking for an adivasi community jointly by allopathic practitioners of modern medicine along with local amchis/ medicine practitioners.[17]
We can infer that policy-making is complex, dynamic and a political process. Science is no longer the exclusive tradition that directs policies. JFM is influenced by various standpoints and science may be one of them. In the reality of JFM today, the place of science in JFM related policymaking is almost invisiblized. The experts like E. Somanathan would feed into analysis of forest conservation and sustainable use practices by using technologies like Geographic Information Systems, take stalk of the efficiency of conservation and species diversity and quantity in forests. Feyerabend would have supported such a multiple inputs that have gone into forest policy in contemporary times as science is one of the traditions among many others that have equal access to the centre of power in society. The position of JFM is nt exclusively within the domain of science and technology policy.
References
