Making Territory: War, Post-war and the Entangled Scales of Contested Forest Governance in Mid-Western Nepal Sarah Byrne, Andrea J. Nightingale and Benedikt Korf ABSTRACT Ruptures that constitute exceptional events in national politics intersect in different ways with local politics, where more ongoing, continuous processes of both contestation and conservation around natural resource use may persist amidst a turbulent political landscape on other scales. Nepal, with its series of unfinished revolutions, civil war (1996–2006), and recurrently contested process of state (trans-)formation, is a case in point. Through a study of a contested forest in mid-western Nepal, this article analyses the entanglement of rupture and realignment of contentious claims to political authority across different scales, as well as the continuities of negotiations over claims to recognition of forest use and citizenship rights. The authors analyse some of the messy and complex practices through which authority to govern forests is claimed and legitimated, and citizenship rights are asserted and defined. They show that while political ruptures caused by the war and post-war dynamics unsettle and reshuffle the political terrain, claims to citizenship and property rights endure, even if the language and form of the claim are adapted. These claims are embedded within existing jurisdictions but, at the same time, actors lay claims to property and citizenship rights by working across scales and re- negotiating their boundaries. ‘Making territory’, the authors conclude, is the effect of the entanglement of these different territorial politics and practices. INTRODUCTION ‘If we are working for conservation, we have no one to fear’ (Gansnu forest user). Nepal is a particularly relevant context in which to analyse how author- ity is produced under conditions of repeated ruptures in rule. The country We would like to express our thanks to the Gansnu forest users who generously shared their time, experience and insights, and to Gitta Shrestha and Subita Pradhan who provided fieldwork assistance. Conversations with Bharat Pokharel and Rony Emmenegger have helped to shape our analysis, as have comments from the editors of this special issue and two anonymous reviewers. The financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant numbers 100013_124459/1 and 100017_124459) is gratefully acknowledged, as is the support of a British Academy International Partnership and Mobility Award (2012–16). Development and Change 47(6): 1269–1293. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12273 C  2016 International Institute of Social Studies.