This paper explores the role of forests in the formation and maintenance of self-identity, drawing on the experiences of 27 people from Tasmania, Australia. Specifically, I argue that forest experiences play an important role shaping some people's ‘self-narrative’ – the biography of their personal experience of the familiar past and anticipated future – framed through three temporal forms: ‘personal’ time, ‘external’ time and ‘ontological’ time. Participants’ recollections show how forest help make time ‘knowable’, in terms of one's own self-trajectory, and time scales which far exceed individual human lives. This link between forests, time and narrative has important implications for the ongoing conversation about temporality in the social sciences, contextualising the reciprocal, subjunctive relationship between humans and nonhumans. This article closes with an invitation to further the ongoing conversation about temporality in the social sciences, particularly in the field of qualitative environmental sociology.

中文翻译：

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塔斯马尼亚森林及其人民：自我叙事、森林和时间性


本文借鉴澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚 27 名人士的经验，探讨了森林在自我认同的形成和维持中的作用。具体来说，我认为森林经历在塑造一些人的“自我叙事”方面发挥着重要作用——他们对熟悉的过去和预期未来的个人经历的传记——通过三种时间形式构成：“个人”时间、“外部”时间和“本体论”时间。参与者的回忆表明，森林如何帮助人们让时间变得“可知”，就个人的自我轨迹和时间尺度而言，时间尺度远远超出了人类的生命。森林、时间和叙事之间的这种联系对于社会科学中正在进行的关于时间性的对话具有重要意义，将人类与非人类之间的相互的、虚拟的关系置于背景中。本文最后邀请大家进一步推进社会科学领域，特别是定性环境社会学领域关于时间性的持续对话。