Beginning in 1955, when she moved at the age of nine to Ankara, Türkiye, Colfer traces a life shaped by encounters with a very different culture and the inequities it revealed. Combining autoethnography with an analysis of modern-day colonialism, she charts her changing understandings of the world, many of which were shared more broadly. The narrative highlights inequities at multiple scales and reflects on both the successes and shortcomings of her own efforts to address them. In doing so, it invites readers to examine their own lives in light of such injustices and to consider how to "make good trouble."

Carol J. Pierce Colfer is semi-retired from the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, Indonesia, where she worked from 1994 until 2009 as Principal Researcher and Program Leader. In 2009, she chose a loose affiliation as a Senior Associate and moved to Ithaca, New York. In 2024, she received the prestigious Scientific Achievement Award from the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations in Sweden. Between 2009 and 2024, she was also affiliated with Cornell University. She has authored and co-edited numerous books, her most recent being two collections are Adaptive Collaborative Management in Forest Landscapes (Taylor & Francis 2022) and Responding to Environmental Issues through Adaptive Collaborative Management (Taylor & Francis 2023).