This theme section brings the state back into anthropological studies of corporate social responsibility through the lens of Norwegian energy corporations working abroad. These transnational corporations (TNCs) are expected by the government to act responsibly when “going global.” Yet, we have observed that abroad, Norwegian corporations backed by state capital largely operate like any other TNCs. We argue that the driver for the adaptation to global capitalism is not coming from the embracing of neoliberal policies in Norway, but is rather inherent to the ways internationalization of the Norwegian economy is unfolding. To the extent that the Norwegian state has an impact on the corporations’ international endeavors, it relates primarily to the imperative of managing Norway’s reputation as a humanitarian superpower.
This article explores the relationship between visualism, practice and knowledge through the specific case of the 2012-2013 coffee rust-epidemic and its repercussions among small-scale coffee farmers in Turrialba, Costa Rica. The article shows how the rust-epidemic marked an alteration not only in farmers and agronomists' perceptions of roya, but also in farming practices. The argument of the article is twofold: First, that the perceptual shift of roya from being 'calm' to becoming 'wild' involved both top-down and bottom-up processes; and, second, that farmers increasingly combine looking and seeing in their daily management practices. We illustrate these dynamic interchanges by drawing on Okely's (2001, Visualism and Landscape: Looking and Seeing in Normandy. Ethnos, 66(1):99-120) approach to visualism, and argue that an emphasis on interchanges and interconnections between knowledges is essential in dealings with ecological alteration.
Through a multi-sited study of the Norwegian state-owned renewable energy corporation Statkraft, this article explores how the increasing embedding of corporate social responsibility in international guidelines impacts the way responsibility is handled when large energy corporations operate overseas. Focusing on one of Statkraft’s projects in Turkey, we detail how standards are used to guide both operations in the field and external reporting, in the process distancing the corporation from its Norwegian origin. We argue that the application of standards results in much less standardization than is often assumed. “Stories” become as important for reporting as standards, and the elusive figure of the “stakeholder” plays an important role in holding together the heterogeneous field of corporate responsibility.
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