The charcoal forest: Ecology, aesthetics and the Anthropocene

Abstract

This article explores the significance of local forms of knowledge of the natural world, especially the role of this knowledge in cultural coherence and persistence through time, and its consequent significance to the intellectual challenges of the Anthropocene. The text examines the activity of a master charcoal-maker and forest-manager in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, who works within a landscape recognized by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS)-a place of special cultural and agroecological value. Drawing on theories of the evolution of knowledge and material culture studies, charcoal is seen as embodiment of particular understandings of the agencies of the natural world. Attention to the various stages in the production and use of charcoal sheds light on the structure of this knowledge, especially on the important areas in which qualities of one field of activity are transferred to or become essential to another. These "overlaps" link what otherwise appear to be disparate fields of activity into mutually constitutive elements of a whole. They shed light on the dynamics of cultural persistence and indicate the diversity of forms environmental knowledge; they can amplify understanding of the nature of the Anthropocene.