Patterns of inequality in global forest science conferences: An analysis of actors involved in IUFRO World Congresses with a focus on gender and geography

Abstract

Abstract Inequality has become a core topic of forest-related research: Forest scholars have investigated how socio-economic and gender inequalities impact on forest use, how power asymmetries shape forest politics and governance, and how gendered professional norms contribute to the marginalization of women in forest industry and education. However, to what extent the forest science community is itself structured by inequality and what effect this may have has so far not been explored. We address this gap by analysing the diversity of actors involved global forest science conferences, which we deem a crucial space of research communication and knowledge circulation. Our study covers the past three World Congresses of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) that took place in 2010, 2014 and 2019. We examine the social structure of these events with a focus on the dimensions of gender and geography, based on scholars sex and affiliation, and disaggregated by different conference roles (members of congress scientific committees, keynote/plenum speakers, session chairs and presenters). Our results show that the actor composition notably diversified over the past decade, with more women and scholars from Southern world regions performing active roles in the congresses. However, male forest scientists based in the Global North continue to dominate the events in numerical terms. Significant gender and geography-related inequalities persist, and they remain particularly pronounced in actor groups with high agenda-setting and gate-keeping power. Our analysis points at social patterns within the forest science community that are likely to impact on the knowledge it generates. To make global forest science conferences a more inclusive space of scholarly exchange, we suggest two sorts of ‘affirmative action’ in the context of conference organisation: The first is to tackle ‘backstage’ inequalities by involving more scientists from under-represented groups as members of congress scientific committees and session chairs. The second is to make conscious choices about place, as our analysis corroborates the finding that for some groups of scholars, the congress location immensely impacts on their chances to take part. Our study contributes to the emergent scholarship on conferences which we conceptualise as constituting spaces of scientific fields. Revealing inequalities in IUFRO World Congresses, we aim at stimulating a critical-constructive reflection among members of the forest research community.