Example question: Providing landholders with a financial payment to stop logging will result in a net reduction in logging activities

Researcher’s assumptions: Only knowledge gained through the scientific method through unprejudiced use of the senses is accurate and true

Example question: Providing landholders with a financial payment to stop logging will have no effect on logging activities

Researcher’s assumptions: That humans can never know reality perfectly and so should seek to falsify, rather than verify, their theories or laws, whereby a genuine counter-instance would act to falsify the theory.

Example question: What is the purpose of the (social) structural relationships in this community (e.g., social classes, governments) and how do they influence logging practices here and elsewhere?

Researcher’s assumptions: Once I can understand the systematic structure (through understanding objects, concepts, ideas, and words as they relate to one another) of social classes and relationships, I can generalize the knowledge and apply it to all aspects of human culture (in space and time).

Example question: What currently motivates individuals in this community to log?

Researcher’s assumptions: I know that each individual defines and frames problems in their own way, and these differences must be understood to evaluate the system

Example question: Why do individuals not stop logging when they said they would?

Researcher’s assumptions: I can interpret the (hidden) meanings of a text or event from the perspective of the author or participant within its social and historical context.

Example question: Why do people log?

Researcher’s assumptions: I believe researchers can put their own systems of meaning (of reality) aside and interpret the immediate personal experience of a phenomenon and thus give rise to a new, refreshed, or richer meaning of the phenomenon

Example question: How do different individuals’ descriptions, definitions, and metaphors of the trees affect logging outcomes in this community (e.g., are the trees considered part of a forest or are they considered a resource)?

Researcher’s assumptions: I believe that the meaning of objects arises out of social interaction (language) between people and that people interact with and interpret objects on the basis of the meanings those objects have. People are conscious of their role in interaction (thought) and can change their behavior.

Example question: How can we ensure that the community shares in the benefits of logging or alternatives to logging?

Researcher’s assumptions: I want to create a mutual interdependence between the research participants and to transform structures that exploit people.

Example question: How can we garner support and develop effective governance structures to enable sustainable livelihoods in this community?

Researcher’s assumptions: I want to collaborate with the people in the system, rather than conduct research on them, to create an agenda for active change or political reform.

Example question: Does examining logging from a feminist perspective offer alternative understandings of the dynamics and power relations among and between the stakeholders?

Researcher’s assumptions: I believe logging is a masculine activity and reflects a patriarchal world and culture. Exploring logging solely from a traditional scientific (i.e., nonfeminist) perspective limits opportunities to understand behavior and create change.

Example question: What are the narrative structures within this system that describe how a logging debate has arisen in this historical context?

Researcher’s assumptions: I need to understand not only what the system appears to be, but also how it emerges from the history and culture of the people that comprise the system. In understanding the history and culture, I can come to understand whether or not what I have learned about this system can be applied to other systems.

Example question: Why is it assumed that logging is a problem?

Researcher’s assumptions: I am skeptical of approaches to generating knowledge and want to scrutinize, contest, deconstruct, and make visible the (invisible) origins, assumptions, and effects of meaning.