The Pacific Northwest forest dispute: Processes, constructions, and representations (Washington)

In this ethnographic study I examine language and disputing in the Pacific Northwest forest dispute to understand the dispute from the perspective of the dispute participants. Who are they? How do they negotiate social relationships? How do they define the issues in dispute? How do elected officials represent their concerns? And, how does the dispute transform over time?; I examine three dispute processes that took place between July 1994 and January 1996. One involves an attempt to reauthorize a Washington State assistance program for dislocated timber workers. Another involves an attempt to enact land-use reform through a citizens' regulatory “takings” initiative in Washington State. A third involves an attempt to reform the federal Endangered Species Act. I use the extended case method and incorporate the analysis of talk-in-interaction to generate this processual study.; I show how dispute participants competed to define social problems and establish whose rights the government should protect: those of the individual or those of the collectivity. I also relate participant understandings to the broader social context of the dispute processes: history, economics, law, and politics. I argue that political partisanship, fiscal conservatism, and private property rights transformed the Pacific Northwest forest dispute in late-1994 and 1995. After that time economic discourse dominated dispute processes, pushing aside scientific discourse and overturning the concept of the social safety net.; This dissertation contributes to the study of language and disputing and the ethnographic record of contemporary North America.