1 Business on the margin: Co-operative heating and the politics of forests in Finland

In this paper I explore the modification of the economic landscape of Finnish forestry. My focus is on the creation of alternative flows of timber and the formation of economic space for small heating businesses. I have chosen a case study approach to follow the micro-dynamics of power within a sector in which the activities of local forest owners are governed by scientific principles and knowledge. I carefully follow the emergence and stabilisation of one heating co-operative to analyse the modification of the relationship between forest owners and forests. Based on my analysis I argue that the positive powers of associations through which local forest owners were able to improve their position within forestry were not confined to the local but varied across spatial and temporal scales. The spatial reorganisation of the economic relations affected the weight of economic knowledge and position of the small actors within production chains