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CHAPTER 10
Made-to-Measure:
In and Out of Touch with the Old-Growth
Forest
Joonas Vola , Pasi Rautio , and Outi Rantala
Staying proximate with:Old forests, trees, beard lichens.
Methodological approach: Considering different kinds of
measurements.
Main concepts: Touch, cutting-together-apart.
Tips for future research: Stay in touch with different modes
of measurement.
J. Vola (B) · O. Rantala
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
e-mail: joonas.vola@ulapland.fi
O. Rantala
e-mail: outi.rantala@ulapland.fi
P. Rautio
Natural Resources Institute Finland, Rovaniemi, Finland
e-mail: pasi.rautio@luke.fi
© The Author(s) 2024
O. Rantala et al. (eds.), Researching with Proximity, Arctic Encounters,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39500-0_10
147
148 J. VOLA ET AL.
The work in hand touches upon the definition of age of forest areas
in making them sensuous and sensible for environmental policies, forest
economy and tourism research, through the indicators: diameter of
tree trunks and lichen diversity. The approach utilises the intra-actions
in analysing how managing the forests generate measurement, experi-
ence, and value in accordance with forest economy, ecology, and nature
tourism. Intra-active measures take place both whilst being in touch of
the forest as well as in preserving untouchedness of certain area through
observations, where untouchendess both repel and attract different
forms of engagements. Whilst biology offers vocabulary, entering to a
deeper multispecies dialogue, micro-level ethnographic methods based on
mobility and being-with are applied, moving the focus from experiments
to experience, and from knowing to making of acquaintances.
This chapter has been written by cutting together the work of three
different authors who have been in touch with and touched by the forest
in different ways. The common and shared interest concerns the ecolog-
ical sustainability and use of forest areas, with a specific focus on the
Finnish Arctic. Pasi Rautio, besides his practical experience with forests,
presents knowledge on the measurements conducted in field experiments
and critical views on the definitions used in the management of natural
resources, a category in which forests and timber are included. Outi
Rantala brings in another footed and rooted standpoint from tourism
research and multispecies ethnography wherein the forest is experienced
rather than experimented with, utilising a variety of mobile and micro-
ethnographic methods, such as walking- and skiing-with, photographing,
and writing a diary. These different approaches, definitions, and agencies
have been put together by Joonas Vola’s posthumanist and new materi-
alist theoretical reading to understand how the forest is either seen from
the trees or with them.
A forest, with its ecology and biodiversity, is managed and sustained
by defining it as belonging to a certain qualifying category. One of the
ways to identify a forest is according to its age. Age, however, is not
a simple matter. It is the outcome of various relations, an assemblage
of multiple species and technologies, material and linguistic, driven by
biology, different policies, and economic interests (see Kortelainen 2010;
Vannini and Vannini 2016). Within this chapter, we first touch upon how
the forest is made in the process of measuring—how the concepts, cate-
gorisations, standardisations, and calculations co-conduct the outcome
10 MADE-TO-MEASURE: IN AND OUT OF TOUCH ... 149
that differentiates one forest from another. Whilst such numericalisa-
tion and countability offer an approximate characterisation of the forest,
they may substitute for proximity by abstracting the environment, thus
being out of touch with the concrete forest in nature. Therefore, second,
we have to question whether the age of the old-growth forest, rather
than being defined by a mere number, is about how old one feels the
forest is. Feeling requires coming into touch with the forest instead of
leaving it untouched, a state that is often wrapped up in the description
of an old forest. Instead of aiming to stabilise elusive conceptualisa-
tions of the types of forests, we feel our way towards intra-living, being
observant of the multispecies world whilst also being alive to it and expe-
riencing the characteristics of the forest—seeing the lichen for the trees
and discussing how, on these occasions, we touch and are touched by the
forest-becoming-an-age.
The methodological contribution of the chapter is its application of
Karen Barad’s concept of intra-actions to the practice of observations of
the natural environment, both those made and recorded with standard
measurements, which are used by biologists and applied in forestry, and
those made as a visitor in situ with different methods of mobility, which
are recorded by the tourism researcher. The measurements made in or
out of touch depend on whether they are done in close proximity or
from a distance. Proximity is therefore a crucial factor and variable in the
setting, present in both ways of observation and differing mainly in the
requirements for the stability or occasional appearances of the observed
phenomenon. In relation to the Arctic, the question of forestry and its
standards for various types of forests and their growth, the regionality,
and the climate form an exception to the rule and present an obstacle
for universal definition—moreover, arcticality is a significant matter due
to seasonality and the expectations of nature-based tourism relying on the
image of untouched nature.
150 J. VOLA ET AL.
In the natural sciences, definitions are key to measurement, and forests
and their components are no exception. Quantifying biological diversity
and establishing conventions for its preservation are tasks that require
a number of definitions, thus composing terminology for the different
kinds of forests and the species they contain. The Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO 2002) considers a forest to
be a ‘place that is more than 0.5 hectares and where the canopy cover
(i.e. the area that leaves cover) is over 10% and trees are at least 5 meters
tall in the mature stage.’ Whilst the definition relies on such factors as
surface area and coverage, which are measures made and illustrated from
an aerial perspective, it also mentions maturing and height—in other
words, growing up and aging. These measurement are made in prox-
imity with the trees by entering the forest floor. To concentrate rather
on biographical state than appearances, the Convention of Biological
Diversity provides the following definitions for different types of forests:
A primary forest is a forest that has never been logged and has developed
following natural disturbances and under natural processes, regardless of its
age. ‘Direct human disturbance’ is referred to as the intentional clearing
of a forest by any means (including fire) to manage or alter it for human
use. Also included as primary are forests that are used inconsequentially
by indigenous and local communities living traditional lifestyles relevant
for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. […] A
secondary forest is a forest that has been logged and has recovered natu-
rally or artificially. […] Old growth forest stands are stands in primary or
secondary forests that have developed the structures and species normally
associated with old primary forests of that type and that have sufficiently
accumulated to act as a forest ecosystem distinct from any younger age
class. (CBD 2006)
10 MADE-TO-MEASURE: IN AND OUT OF TOUCH ... 151
According to this definition, old-growth forests stand in a primary or a
secondary forest. Although they may be considered untouched pieces of
nature, they are not isolated; they are in touch with their younger rela-
tives surrounding them. To follow the work of Karen Barad on feminist
new materialism and the philosophy of science, nothing really escapes or
excludes the touch of others to remain untouched by intra-actions. A
forest, as with any object or phenomenon, comes into being as some-
thing in accordance with intra-actions. The intra-active world does not
consist of interacting, pre-existing, or previously identified parts. To be a
part of, or apart from, an entity that is co-constituted through particular
intra-actions is a process that makes, states, and defines the identity and
character of its constituting units.
In methodology and practical experimenting, the apparatuses ar e the
conditions of possibility, simultaneously fully material and discursive,
producing determinate meanings and material beings whilst excluding the
production of others (Barad 2007). The definitions separating a forest or
a species from the total ecosystem are involved in the practice of ‘making
a difference, of cutting together-apart’ (Barad 2012, 7). This issue, of
making a difference, has multiple meanings in the presented context: it is
not about simply telling things apart that are, by nature, already separated
from each other, but rather about drawing things apart through different
methodologies to measure, evaluate, and set them in relation with one
another, first by cutting them apart as specimens, one and another, and
then placing by them together-apart. By making these distinctions, scien-
tists facilitate making a difference in the preservation of certain forest
areas and, on a wider scale, the planet. These definitions are matters of
not only ecological but also economic and political interest. Whilst scien-
tific measurements and calculations, in ecology or economics, may present
themselves as apolitical, such a claim of ‘[a]nti-politics, despite the name,
is fully political’ (Vannini and Vannini 2016, 200). In the field of forests
and forestry, besides the science of cutting together-apart, the definitions
are made-to-measure.
If we are to understand that old-growth forests are, as a concept,
‘defined by the circumstances required for their measurement’ (Barad
2007, 109), we have to recognise their established and implemented
measures, as well as the circumstances under which measuring is
conducted. Here Barad draws from the work of physicist Nils Bohr:
concepts, such as those defining the characteristics of a forest, are the
outcomes of ‘specific physical arrangements’ and are ‘not ideational in
152 J. VOLA ET AL.
character’ (ibid). Nevertheless, the aforementioned established measures
and circumstances are not limited to material in a narrow sense, instead
including all the factors involved before and after entering the measured
forest area, both inside and outside it. For example, the definition of ‘old’
ought to indicate certain biological conditions; when narrowed down to a
number of years, it is not only derived from the outcome of field tests but
also requires a number of different metrics to evaluate, with economics
and politics present as co-conducting conditions.
The wealth of the nation, for example, is presented in the definition.
The concept of a for est is very much nationally described and measured,
and the FAO’s international definition is more or less artificially pasted on
the top of the national designations from which it is cut. To be able to
compare forest resources, the states of forests, and forest uses in different
states, it is vital that the definitions used are commensurate with each
other. Even when measuring, for example, the number of cuttings in cubic
meters, without a common definition of a forest, the measurement loses
its meaning, such as when it is unclear whether the amount was cut from
an area of one or ten hectares.
The importance of clear definitions was demonstrated in international
forest policy in 2020 when the Commission of the European Union
published the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (European Commission
2020). In this document, the definition—or lack thereof—for old-growth
forests caused heavy debates amongst forest owners, the forest industry,
and environmental NGOs. The paper states that ‘as part of this focus on
strict protection, it will be crucial to define, map, monitor and strictly
protect all the EU’s remaining primary and old-growth forests.’ The
strategy itself does not define primary or old-growth forests, referring
instead to the Convention on Biological Diversity issued by the UN
quoted above. The processes leading to the UN’s definitions of forest
types are ultimately formed around political negotiations, a compromise
that limits their ability to ‘map, monitor, and protect forests,’ as the EU
strategy promised. Especially in Nordic and Baltic countries, the old-
growth forest definition referring to secondary forests caused confusion
amongst stakeholders, as essentially all managed forests can be considered
secondary forests.
These definitions therefore provide poor tools for practical forestry or
for ensuring environmental protection when trying to measur e the area
of old-growth forests or to avoid implementing overly intensive forestry
methods within their bounds. They also leave a great deal of room for
10 MADE-TO-MEASURE: IN AND OUT OF TOUCH ... 153
interpretation, such that they have led to new conflicts between the envi-
ronmental NGOs trying to protect these forests and the forest owners
trying to manage their property and sell their timber. Perhaps these issues
were acknowledged amongst the European Commission members, as the
new forest strategy, accepted in 2021, states, ‘The Commission is working
in cooperation with Member States and stakeholders to agree, by the end
of 2021, on a common definition for primary and old-growth forests
and the strict protection regime’ (European Commission 2021). At the
current moment (March 2023), this process is still ongoing. It remains to
be seen whether the discussions in the EU will lead to definitions that are
more useful for practical forestry and nature protection than those that
were the result of a long, political, UN-level procedure.
Whilst the measurements are a part of the definitions for different
forest types, the act of measuring also generates value. The physicist
Erwin Schrödinger argued that ‘a variable has no definite value before
measuring it and therefore measuring does not mean ascertaining the
value that it has’ (Barad 2007, 281). Value comes out of evaluation.
What one measures is determined by what is considered valuable. It is
not an involuntary appreciation—as in the case of the forest, trees are
considered important, being necessary for the rest of the ecosystem and
therefore their number and age render forests more or less valuable.
Biodiversity estimates of a certain forest area speak to this point, with
some areas becoming more valuable than others if they are richer in
species variety. Nor does reality precede measurement: instead, the known
world is co-conducted in the act, integrating and assimilating all the
154 J. VOLA ET AL.
present techniques, technologies, instruments, positions, and parties. To
follow Schrödinger, if reality does not determine the measured value, the
measured value may define reality (Barad 2007, 281), including the ways
in which we record and register it. According to Michael Lynch’s spatial
grammars, the features of the physical locale in which research takes place
exist in relation to the reach that particular instrumental complexes facil-
itate (Kelly and Lezaun 2013), meaning that the measuring instruments
constitute what can be recorded and stated about a locale, such as a forest
area. To take an example of spatial knowledge, a way to measure the vege-
tation in an area is to delineate it with a quadrat frame. Multiple quadrats
in turn allow us to extrapolate measurements for the whole community
(Krebs 2014, 126). Here quadrats are the spatial grammar, the set of
structural constraints. Contact with a frame does not leave permanent
marks on physical entities, whether the plants or the landscape itself, yet it
is nevertheless the scaffolding structure of knowledge in this intra-action:
you cannot take the rectilinear out of the vegetation measurement (Vola
2022, 89). The recording device is therefore entangled with the measured
phenomenon (Barad 2007, 283).
Bohr argues that the measurement of specifically embodied concepts
requires the simultaneous employment of mutually exclusive experimental
arrangements—however, that concurrent exclusivity is an impossibility by
definition (Barad 2007, 109). How, then, is the concept of old-growth
forest to account for the use of forests by, for example, indigenous
peoples? Such cultures, by definition, are not to be separated from the
land. Their special relation to the land is very much defined by its tradi-
tional use. Nevertheless, a living culture is never to be considered in
practice an artefact car ved in stone: instead, it flexibly meets the challenges
presented by shifting circumstances. The use of the forest may never be
reducible to fully fixed values, given that it is very much co-conducted
with the shifting particles and units of which the forest consists. Further-
more, indigeneity may not be considered, in all parts of the globe and
in all societies, a static factor, but highly political and situational, varying
in its identification and recognition and including or excluding certain
individuals as a part of its collective group.
As we define the concept of an old-growth forest, we also determine
the destiny of a certain forest. Furthermore, in doing so, we define or
defy not only the destiny of one forest but also the destiny of all forests.
By delineating apart of an ecosystem, we also affect other forest areas
10 MADE-TO-MEASURE: IN AND OUT OF TOUCH ... 155
and ecosystems; they are not apart from each other conceptually or mate-
rially, but they are a-part of the same intra-active ecosystem in this era of
global warming and climate crisis. Whilst government policies influence
the definition of ‘old,’ they also function within the parameters set by the
‘old.’ This prospect may be further elaborated by using the term ‘rare.’
Any individual specimen or species is not rare per se; it rather becomes
rare due to its circumstances. Therefore, a rare species might become a
pest due to its sheer number in a number of years if the circumstances
change to favour it. Furthermore, if a certain area is protected due to the
fact that a rare species occupies or inhabits it occasionally, this change in
status from rare to common—or even its complete extinction—also influ-
ences the evaluated status of the complete ecosystem of that area. The
disappearance or disqualification of a protected animal leaves the forest or
biotope unprotected, out of touch, and out of time. These shifts mean
that environmental ethics seem highly situational.
Barad’s understanding of ethics does not consider acting ethically to
be a targeted response to an exteriorised other; she rather emphasises
the relationalities of becoming and the responsibility and accountability
inherent in them (Barad 2007, 393). Intra-actively, what we do to others,
we do for ourselves.
It is therefore crucial for us to recognise the necessity of understanding
forests not as separate specimens or protected locales but as in situ parts of
the planetary ecosystem both affecting and being affected by the climate
and its disastrous changes. They are an intra-active part, altering what is
left cut of f outside and nevertheless inevitably defining what is inside—
the regulated, separated, defined, and protected distinct entity. To think
intra-ethically, we must see the forest for the trees.
156 J. VOLA ET AL.
What if age, rather than a number, is about how old one feels ?Such
feeling requires one to be in touch with. Barad writes that ‘a form of
experimenting is about being in touch [keeping] theories alive and lively
[…], responsible and responsive’ (Barad 2015, 153, emphasis added).
This understanding is brought into perspective, literally, by anthropolo-
gist Michael Jackson, who writes: ‘[I] climbed the hill overlooking the
village to get things into perspective by distancing myself from them
[…] believing that my superior position would help me gain insights
into the organization of the village when, in fact, it was making me
lose touch with it.’ He thus moves against the idea of radical empiricism
requiring ‘working through all five senses and reflecting inwardly as well
as observing outwardly, suspending the sense of separateness between self
and other and evok[ing] the primordial meaning of knowledge as a mode
of being-together-with’ (Jackson 1989, 8, emphasis original). Such an
approach requires to move in proximity with the studied phenomenon
to be literally able to touch it, and furthermore to be touched by it.
The forest should not be simply subjected to senses to make sense of it
outwardly, but to become sensitive to the sensations taking place inwardly
in the encounter. One must enter the forest and to be enveloped by it.
In the intra-actions, one does not simply move oneself and move others,
but is simultaneously moved by others, whilst moving along together.
When considering planetary responsibility and responsiveness, we must
reconsider the fundaments of ethical consideration, and move towards
intra-ethics. Following Barad, rejecting individualism as a foundation for
traditional approaches to ethics, and recognising the agency of others
do not relief human from responsibility, rather such understanding of
ethics requires heightened attentiveness to surrounding power asym-
metries. To intra-act responsibly entails a reworking of the notions of
causation concerned with distinct sequential events, which do not occupy
fixed positions in space and time, but the time and space themselves are
coproduced and performed, where a single moment does not exist on its
own and ethics concern the becomings that we are a part of (Barad 2007,
218, 219, 393, 396). Intra-ethics requires radically being-together-with
the other rather than othering oneself from it, insisting that we relate
to and negotiate with sensitive and sensible being, which also works as
an indicator of the ecological state of affairs. Here ‘[t]he idea is to do
collaborative research, to be in touch, in ways that enable response-ability’
10 MADE-TO-MEASURE: IN AND OUT OF TOUCH ... 157
(Barad 2012, 2). Whilst the definitions of forests are decided at roundta-
bles, measurement takes place amidst the measured units, afoot amongst
the trees, experimenting and inevitably experiencing them in situ. Field
experiment measures are therefore very much corporeal and in contact
with the other, wherein the diameter of the trees is measured at chest
height, necessarily including the size of the human body in their practice.
The tree individual’s life is identified at the level of the heart.
Besides measuring trees, there are other alternative indicators for the
age of the forest. In evaluating old-growth forests, the presence of beard
lichens has been recognised as an important sign of conservation value
(Canadian Museum of Nature 2019). This evaluation is not based on the
measuring of conservation value based on the same units that also have
direct economic value for forestry and industry, as is the case for trees.
This alternative indicator for age also brings the question of old-growth
into closer proximity with the special characteristics of Arctic forests. In
the Arctic area, tree growth is inhibited by low temperatures and a short
growing season due to the lack of sunlight during the winter season.
Therefore, the diameter measurement is misleading when it comes to the
actual age of the individual tree, a circumstance that yet again problema-
tises a standard definition for old-growth forests. Whilst the trees in the
Arctic forests do grow old, they may not grow up. Beard lichen growth
may thus be a more accurate indicator of age than the actual size of the
trees in this specific climatic and geophysical constitution.
Instead of the othering or numericalisation of the forest, an alterna-
tive approach for observing it may be referred to as familiarising-with. It
derives from walking-with methods and moves towards being-together-
with methodology, which is connected to posthuman inquiries into the
Anthropocene that aim to think-with objects, things, animals, elements,
and theories (see Springgay and Truman 2018; Edensor 2008; Ingold
and Vergunst 2008;Thrift 2008; Vannini 2015). The being-together-
with method integrates corporeal, sensory, and affective measures, not
so much experimenting with as experiencing, over several visits to forests,
features such as the use of hiking and skiing as a means of travel. In
intra-living, agency is about being in the world whilst simultaneously
being alive to it: ‘A being that moves, knows, and describes must be
observant,’ which ‘means being alive to the world’ (Ingold 2011, xii).
Being-with emphasises the method’s aim to practice and develop more-
than-human ethnography, described as follows in the ILA: Envisioning
proximity tourism with new materialism research project manifesto:
158 J. VOLA ET AL.
[We] use a variety of qualitative research methods to sensitize to the
processes of intra-living and to find ways to express these processes. All
these methods are characterized by simplicity and humbleness towards the
more-than-human agents with which researchers share their space. These
methods include ‘still’ observation by sitting, meditating, and sleeping in
nature with the presence of deadwood, rocks, beard lichen, and bilber-
ries; writing of research diaries of these experiences; photographing; and
slow hiking in the premises of the nature park (Springgay and Truman
2018). For the researchers, being with deadwood, rocks, beard lichen,
and bilberries is itself a practical feature of caring in a research process.
This also opens up the researchers to the variable responsiveness of the
world (Barad 2007; Rosiek and Snyder 2018)—to situations of surprise
and of not knowing (Ulmer 2017)—necessitating space for change and
improvisation.
In order to get in touch with the intra-living, an example of more-
than-human ethnography is presented in the following short summary
from fieldnotes. The fieldnotes touch upon a series of visits (4.1.2020–
31.1.2021) to a protected forest area located in the Arctic region, and
they pay careful attention to the beard lichens growing in the location:
Contrary to the expectation of the observant visitor, the area did not
consist of huge, old trees, but the strong atmospheric change was made
evident by the grey-green lichen hanging from the trees, where the sensa-
tion could be best described by the word ‘magical.’ Other depictions of
experiencing a forest with lichen growth include the phrase ‘softer air,’
which makes breathing easier. Although scientific experimentation requires
its results to be verified through repetition and the achievement of the same
outcome, the experience of magic did not reoccur in the visitor’s following
visits to the same forest. The experiences and sensitivities that cannot be
repeated may be recorded by writing a journal and keeping a photograph
diary. This method, of recording one’s encounters with lichens—espe-
cially the bear d lichens growing down from the tree branches—made the
area more easily noticeable and recognizable, almost providing a friendly
gesture towards the visitor. In one word, it began to become familiar:
familiar with oneself.
This familiarising—the making of an acquaintance—raises a series of
questions: How does one relate or establish a relation to someone
or something? How do (post-qualitative) social scientists do so? Is it
10 MADE-TO-MEASURE: IN AND OUT OF TOUCH ... 159
part of a regular encounter or is it done whilst passing by? Philoso-
pher ToivoSalonensaysthatweneed to spendtimeinnaturetostart
seeing nuances, the differences in colours, and to understand them. Take,
for example, photographing. Whilst, as a method of inquiry, photog-
raphy has its problems with the ‘ethics of seeing’ (Sontag 2005 [1973],
3) by defining what is to be seen and therefore worth of noticing, it
also requires and allows one to stop and pay attention. The camera’s
shutter cuts off a moment from the stream of events and draws out
the object that it isolates from the background and brings into focus.
The act of photographing is a clipping-together-apart whilst, for example,
documenting the growth of beard lichens. Methodologically, this micro-
level ethnographic work means becoming more-than-acquainted with the
forest: it means paying attention, starting to notice and understand its
nuances, and foregrounding establishing friendships.
Whilst photography is an artistic practice applied in science for docu-
mentation and recording, it is also very much a touristic practice—it is
part of the experience, defining how the location is perceived through
the lens and simultaneously prepared for representation after leaving the
location behind. There is a risk of looking only through the lens and only
seeing what objects co-present themselves through the objective. Besides
the highly specified and automatised viewfinder of a camera, a practiced
guide in the context of Lapland natur e tourism may pay attention to
the experiences of the tourists and thus also guide their attention to co-
conduct a ‘natural’ environment appropriate for tourism (Rantala 2011).
Here, the guiding derives from being-together-with both the surrounding
environment and the visiting tourists instead of the standardised and auto-
matic function of a camera. To further study and develop the possibilities
of using a camera to assist with the micro-ethnographic method may
require the redefining of its objectives as well. Instead of drawing an
object out of the background, the camera could be utilised to show how
things and beings are embedded in the ground, in the soil, and instead of
objectivising and immobilising them, it can set things into movement or
record the trails of mobile beings. For example, instead of a focus on the
beard lichen involving taking it from tree trunk or branches, its immersive
nature and inseparability could be recorded in photographs. By changing
the objectives, the ‘being that is originally fully immersed in the world’
may not ‘become closed in upon itself’ (Vannini and Vannini 2016, 203).
In the being-together-with method, I touch, and I am being
touched—so too for the forest. Old-growth forests are often depicted
160 J. VOLA ET AL.
as unmanaged. Untouchedness in this methodological context does not
refer so much to forestry as it does to people and leisure activities in
the Arctic climate, from leaving traces and making tracks in the forest
to machines moving and pressing down the snow according to the
needs of cross-country and downhill skiers. A fresh snowfall covers the
ground, leaving an impression of untouchedness for a moment before
someone or something leaves tracks with their paws, feet, skis, or snow-
mobile. Especially for a tourist inexperienced with snow brought by
seasonal changes, the first impression of this heavily managed land may
be that it is untouched, with a lake appearing to be a field or clear-cut
patch. Under the snow, nature seems untouched. This untouchedness can
change overnight depending on how much snow falls, how quickly the
track and slope maintenance is done, or how many people are touring the
forest. Moving in the forest is partially enabled by paths of cut trees,
which form accessible tracks. In wintertime, skiing retraces those cuts
by leaving linear tracks in the snow. The moving method, bringing one
amongst one’s acquaintances, also cuts-together-apart, and old growth is
cut fresh.
The chapter touches upon a request to be more careful and considerate
towards the defining concepts used in making sense of the world, which
concerns the sensitive question of age, specifically that of forest areas, and
how defining the maturity of a forest plays a key role in its actualising
futures, whether it i s conserved or harvested. It must also be acknowl-
edged that the future of the forest is inseparable from the future of the
planet as we know it, alongside the human societies occupying it. It is
vital to recognise how the sensitive forests are made sensuous and sensible
for environmental policies and economy. The chapter exemplifies how
Barad’s intra-actions, as untouchedness and being in touch with, generate
10 MADE-TO-MEASURE: IN AND OUT OF TOUCH ... 161
measurement, identification, concepts, value, and experience. In other
words, they de/generate the forest, make it to measure, and identified
it as a forest somewhere along the conceptual axis of ‘secondary-old-
growth,’ generating value in accordance with forest economy, ecology,
and nature tourism. Untouchedness is not only about being passive.
Preservation requires active measures in the location and beyond it, if by
nothing else besides observing its condition. When it comes to tourism,
untouchedness attracts becoming in touch with what may be considered
an authentic nature experience before it is out of reach.
The analysis in the chapter extends from experimenting with age to
experiencing it through methods of mobility, such as walking-with, being-
together-with, familiarising-with, and the making of an acquaintance.
Familiarising relates to those dis/appearing moments co-conducted in
forms of micro-level ethnography, where moving along and stopping by
make things and beings come-together-apart. Such constant changes in
making multispecies acquaintances are what the methods of intra-living
are about. One cannot take the forest out of the planetary ecosystem,
or the beard lichen out of the tree trunk, or the human out of the
observations. Measuring the age of a tree not only displays the diam-
eter of the trunk but also records the measure of a man, chest high, two
measure(d) organisms counted as the same figure, as close proximates.
Also, observing the lichen or being-together-with-lichen has not been a
question of considering a singular organism, a lichen, but lichens, always
in the plural, and ‘us’ as a plural, connecting with one aspect of the
ecosystem, not a detail that one can separate and cut apart. The ‘opposite
sides of a boundary between the mind and the physical world,’ in this
case beings and concepts, the measured and the measurements, are falsely
cut apart, since whilst we take measures and make acquaintances ‘we do
not see light, we do see in light’ (Ingold 2011, 96). Whilst experiencing
rather than experimenting on the forest as a methodological approach to
intra-living, we ought not to see lichen—we ought to see in lichen. Biology
thus gives us a certain vocabulary with which to come into terms with
the forest, where the being-together-with-oriented observer is to abandon
any one-sidedness and engage in a lively dialogue with the forest. Instead
of investing in an observer–observed relation where the grammar is based
solely on measurement, dialogical familiarising may help to identify which
measures to take to preserve planetary ecology and stay in touch with the
forest-in-the-becoming-of-an-age.
162 J. VOLA ET AL.
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