Nationalism, (Dis)simulation, and the Politics of Science in Québec's Forest Crisis

This article explores the controversy over the management of the boreal forest of Québec in Canada. Most academic attention describing forest conflicts in North America has focused on the polarity between environmental nongovernmental organizations and First Nations on the one hand and the forest industry lobby and scientific forestry on the other, but little has been said about the role played by nationalism in orchestrating the overexploitation of the forest. By investigating the underlying effects of Québec's nationalism, this article illustrates how the institutional realignment following the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s positioned simulation science at the center of a negotiation process allowing the realization of both nationalist economic agenda and industrial interests to materialize, a relationship between nationalism and science that made Québec's forest crisis a distinct event in North America. Whereas political ecology has asserted the significance of exploring scientific discourses and practices in the production of cultural politics of nature, this article draws on science and technology studies to demonstrate that the so-called complexity, rationality, and certainty associated with forestry science function to disguise the deeply political nature of the production and use of scientific knowledge. With its focus on the development and usage of simulation modeling in forestry, this article concludes that what is at stake in using science in the management of Québec's boreal forest is not merely related either to the forest industry or to expansion of powers of government but, rather, to its weakness in gaining the public and the industry's trust in the management of the public's forests

Environmental ethics · Forest management · Geography · Government (linguistics) · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Canadian Identity and History · Forestry · French Urban and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law

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