Forest machine entrepreneurs’ emotional bonds and conflicts in the forestry transition in Finland

Abstract

Sustainability transitions’ entanglements with the environment, the economy, and society can become manifest in challenges faced by groups with emotional attachments to place. This article examines how emotions contribute to conflict during sustainability transitions among forest machine entrepreneurs, a group of forest professionals whose livelihood is at the center of the ongoing forestry transition in Finland. The study is based on 24 interviews that reveal three ways in which emotions construct conflicts: place attachment and continuity are challenged by decreasing feelings of being appreciated and recognized; the feeling that rural lifestyles are being left behind by comparison with urban areas causes sadness and anger; and pride and traditional forestry knowledge imply distrust of scientific forest information. These results demonstrate that emotions arising from a group-specific place attachment contribute to conflict by acting as a source for diverging views, escalating and maintaining existing conflicts, and by influencing information-processing. The article draws attention to a forestry livelihood and rural, group-specific emotional challenges in the era of sustainability transitions.