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.

Tom Özden-Schilling is Presidential Young Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore.

Timeline of Key Events  vi
A Note on the Maps  ix
Preface  xiii
Acknowledgments  xix
Introduction  1
1. Nostalgia: Placing Histories in a Shrinking State  35
2. Calling: The Returns of Gitxsan Research  73
3. Inheritance: Replacement and Leave-Taking in a Research Forest  111
4. Consignment: Trails, Transects, and Territory without Guarantees  149
5. Resilience: Systems and Survival after Forestry’s Ends  190
Epilogue  224
Notes  237
References  259
Index  287