Energy Colonialism and the Role of the Global in Local Responses to New Energy Infrastructures in the UK: A Critical and Exploratory Empirical Analysis

Abstract

Governments, namely in the global North, are fostering the deployment of large‐scale low carbon and associated energy infrastructures (EIs), such as power lines, to mitigate climate change. However, when infrastructures are to be deployed, opposition is often found. Environmental justice—involving issues of distributive and procedural justice and recognition—and associated inter‐group relations, has been identified as a key aspect for local opposition. However, research has rarely examined local perceptions of environmental justice and associated practices, such as energy colonialism, within a global perspective. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, we examine if and how different‐level intergroup relations and collective narratives shape people's social‐psychological and geographical imaginaries and responses to EIs. Focus groups were conducted with community members affected by proposals to construct high‐voltage power lines in the UK. Analyses suggest that narratives around England's colonial history—within Britain and beyond Britain—shape responses to EIs.

Making Space for Wind Farms: Practices of Territorial Stigmatisation in Rural Denmark

“…There are several theoretical and practical issues that emerge from our empirical case and the far‐reaching consequences of the activation of territorial stigma as a strategic means within socio‐spatial structuration processes of energy transition. Despite all the good intentions of wind farm developers to help municipalities and literally “repower” the peripheries of Denmark, their practices reveal a tendency towards intra‐national “energy colonialism” (Batel and Devine‐Wright ) evoked through neoliberal planning regimes that tend to erode rural communities.…”

“…With regard to renewable energy facilities, the issue of justice has so far been frequently approached both in terms of procedural issues, fair‐decision‐making and participation (e.g. Wolsink ) and in terms of a misrecognition and unequal distribution of burdens and benefits at different scales (Batel and Devine‐Wright ) or within communities (Gross ). In more detail, justice issues have been considered in terms of the active distribution of community benefits (Cowell et al.…”

“…Devine‐Wright and Howes ). However, while these studies have illuminated various implications of wind farms for host locations and communities, mainly from an implicit justice perspective considering wind farms either as a potential lever for an economic emancipation of disadvantaged rural communities or as a way of solidifying distributional and procedural injustices, the term “stigma” is rarely mentioned (for exceptions, see Batel and Devine‐Wright ; van der Horst ). Hence, the significance of (existing) stigma as a derogatory label, the performativity of stigmatisation as a telic practice and its consequences have not been explicitly fleshed out in the process of wind farm developments.…”

“Positive parochialism”, local belonging and ecological concerns: Revisiting Common Ground's Parish Maps project

“…However, an assessment of the participatory potential of the initiative has argued that disappointingly it was "community-led in the sense that government decides how the community will be involved, why they will be involved, what they will do and how they will do it" (Wright et al, 2006, p. 347). 2 Even if it should be noted that it is important to consider environmental justice in a relational manner, not only at the local level but also at national and global levels because creating justice locally might create injustice globally (for an example and discussion, see Batel & Devine-Wright, 2017;also Walker, 2009).…”

“… Even if it should be noted that it is important to consider environmental justice in a relational manner, not only at the local level but also at national and global levels because creating justice locally might create injustice globally (for an example and discussion, see Batel & Devine‐Wright, ; also Walker, ). …”