Résumé
Taking the case of Chitwan district in Nepal, we argue that Forest User Groups (FUGs) are key to the understanding of the politics in the country. Throughout their existence, FUGs have been both a nursery for leadership production and a machine reproducing social hierarchies. The article is an exploration of complex politicized histories of forest management, between social groups and political parties. We argue that FUGs are the product of pre-existing relations of power and, subsequently, of the power plays of political parties. Through qualitative methodologies, we have explored how FUG are a politicized construction, both in terms of forest and social boundaries. Our fieldwork explains how FUGs are part of the strategies of political parties to build power locally. We detail how individual can build social, economic and political capital through FUGs, and, as such, are considered as an essential cog for the control of constituencies by political actors. In doing do, FUG have the potential to push for social transformations, both in terms of social and gender inclusion. However, we conclude by showing that, without a real acknowledgment of their inherent political nature, FUGs have been and still are institutions driving the reproduction of power relation in the Nepali society.