Caring with forests: Human and more‐than‐human care in forest occupations in Germany

Vollständiger Abstract

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Abstract Drawing on ongoing ethnographic and participatory action research within forest occupations in Germany, this paper develops the concept of ‘caring with forests’ to theorise the mutual, multidimensional relationships of care that emerge between humans and more‐than‐human beings in environmental protest settings. Departing from a personal encounter during fieldwork at a forest occupation resisting sand and gravel extractivism, the article argues that forest occupations constitute sites and conditions that enable ontologically relational, non‐anthropocentric practices of caring for and with the forest: squatters take care of the forest by resisting its destruction, while the forest, in turn, sustains its human inhabitants. Theoretically, the paper bridges feminist and materialist perspectives on care (Federici, Tronto), relational‐ontological and posthumanist approaches (Kohn, Puig de la Bellacasa, Haraway) and indigenous cosmologies and cuerpo‐territorio frameworks, extending Tronto's notion of ‘caring with’ beyond human relations to more‐than‐human worlds. Empirically, the study draws on eleven interviews with forest squatters and ‘forest people’, three interviews with local forest rangers, participatory action research with a photographer and filmmakers, informal conversations and social media material collected since 2024, analysed through qualitative content analysis. The empirical discussion is organised around four dimensions: (1) un/caring relations with forests produced by extractive industries and failed renaturation; (2) forest occupations as care‐giving environmental protests; (3) mutual care‐giving amongst humans in the everyday life of occupations; and (4) mutual, ontologically relational care between humans and more‐than‐humans. These findings support two broader contributions: conceptualising forest occupations as sites of protest that foster caring relationships with their more‐than‐human surroundings and advancing the search for sustainable, ethical ways of relating to more‐than‐human worlds against the disruptions caused by environmental destruction. The paper thereby contributes to debates at the intersection of care ethics, social movement studies and more‐than‐human/relational ontologies, situating everyday, intimate and often‐overlooked caring practices at the heart of environmental resistance. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.