Negotiating environmentality: implementation of Joint Forest Management in eastern India

Abstract

This article helps to reconcile developmental and conservation goals in community forest management. Through a case study design, using the conceptual lenses of governmentality, it unpacks how the regional networks of developmental aspirations in the Hazaribagh region of eastern India shaped people’s perception of their forests and their engagement with India’s Joint Forest Management programme. The outcome of such an engagement was a hybrid community forest management, comprising elements of both the rationalities of the state and the local community. Thus, the article suggests that the recognition of regionally grounded networks of developmental aspirations becomes a key to achieving socio-ecological justice in regionally meaningful ways in many countries of the Global South.