This Whole Town Used to Look Like This’: The Uses of Nostalgia in Establishing Claims to Place and Practice in Northern California’s Forests

Nostalgia has reemerged in recent years in response to political, environmental, and other instabilities. This study uses transcripts from fifty-five in-depth interviews with three groups of forest workers to examine the experience of nostalgia in forest management. This takes multiple forms, including nostalgia for place, for work, and for a “pristine” landscape of the past. While the former two are prominent among loggers and, to a lesser extent, governmental workers, the latter type emerges primarily among members of environmental organizations. All three types have implications for the ways people construct their own identities, feelings toward others, and beliefs about how people ought to interact with the forest. They also reflect disruptions to environmental knowledge. Ultimately, nostalgia should be understood as a manifestation of the things that people long for in their current circumstances, most notably, belonging, purpose, and harmony with the landscape.