Browsing by Subject "critical political ecology"

The present climate crisis demands an energy transition, where development in renewable energy is significant. The shift has brought about a surge is wind power schemes underpinned by considerable political conditions. More and more wind power takes place on Sámi homeland, Sápmi. The thesis studies the argumentative performance of the Sámi participating in an operational licensing process of a wind power scheme, Davvi vindkraftverk. The objective of the research has been to demonstrate what an empirical case discloses about argumentation of the Sámi regarding wind power resistance. Few research has addressed political opposition and resistance of wind power in Sápmi. Moreover, the thesis politicises and complexifies the ecological approach to wind power in applying a critical political ecology framework, serving for the exploration of the argumentative performance of the Sámi with an explicit consideration to power within the licensing process. Public hearing statements are a requisite measure of an operational licensing process as well as the most important avenue for discussing viewpoints of stakeholders. A data corpus of 35 hearing statements representative of the Sámi has been systematically treated with an inductive open coding following a robust and rigorous thematic analysis. The analysis has proposed a set of five thematic categories of basis of argumentation: statutory basis, complex harm, advice, asymmetries, and land conceptualisations. The findings suggest that argumentative performance of the Sámi is limited to acting in structures and procedures designed, constructed, and executed by the regnant society. A concept of “rules of the game” is introduced referring to the type of language, rhetoric, and comprehensively, argumentation that ought to be used in hearing statements by the Sámi. The thesis argues that Sámi seek to employ pragmatic adjustments to argumentation on a basis that is apt for discourses of rational, capitalist land-use and land allocation to better navigate participation in the wind power licensing process and to legitimise agency for decision-making. Yet, argumentation is performed strategically without giving away the positionality of being in resistance. The thesis contributes to critical political ecology research suggesting that climate change mitigation and energy transition measures are influenced by relations of power. Additionally, the findings could guide licensing processes into less destructive and dichotomous character, orienting future measures of climate change mitigation and energy transition towards more inclusive decision-making, giving ground for a more holistic understanding of land-use conflicts regarding wind power on Indigenous territory and adding to overcoming contrasting onto-epistemologies. To conclude, the findings of the thesis point to a pressing need for more detailed research on trajectories of green infrastructure on Indigenous territory. What is more, future research could re-disclose Davvi vindkraftverk, when a final verdict of the operational licensing process is known.