The Ends of Research: Indigenous and Settler Science after the War in the Woods

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among neighboring communities of White environmental scientists and First Nations mapmakers in Canada, Tom Özden-Schilling explores the legacies of scientific research that emerged in the wake a period of anti-logging blockades in the late twentieth century. In The Ends of Research Tom Özden-Schilling explores the afterlives of several research initiatives that emerged in the wake of the "War in the Woods," a period of anti-logging blockades in Canada in the late twentieth century. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among neighboring communities of White environmental scientists and First Nations mapmakers in northwest British Columbia, Özden-Schilling examines these researchers' lasting investments and the ways they struggle to continue their work long after the loss of government funding. He charts their use of planning documents, Indigenous territory maps, land use plots, reports, and other documents that help them not only to survive institutional restructuring but to hold on to the practices that they hope will enable future researchers to continue their work. He also shows how their lives and aspirations shape and are shaped by decades-long battles over resource extraction and Indigenous land claims. By focusing on researchers' experiences and personal attachments, Özden-Schilling illustrates the complex relationships between researchers and rural histories of conservation, environmental conflict, resource extraction, and the long-term legacies of scientific research. Contents 5 Timeline of Key Events 6 A Note on the Maps 9 Preface 13 Acknowledgments 19 Introduction 27 1 Nostalgia. Placing Histories in a Shrinking State 61 2 Calling. The Returns of Gitxsan Research 99 3 Inheritance. Replacement and Leave-Taking in a Research Forest 137 4 Consignment. Trails, Transects, and Territory without Guarantees 175 5 Resilience. Systems and Survival after Forestry’s Ends 216 Epilogue 250 Notes 263 References 285 Index 313