Stories, emotions, partnerships and the quest for stable relationships in the Greenlandic mining sector

Abstract

This study aims to understand the emotional labour and relationship building in connection to the expected mining industry in Greenland. Greenland mining is often portrayed as something that could create an economic basis for national independence which makes politicians curious about what a potential “partnership” could make possible. Envisioning future relationships (in debates about mining in Greenland) also set the framework for reinterpretation and redefinition of the past, to give meaning to promised new development; hence, this kind of future-making tends to be contested. The analysis centres around stories of what could be (if Greenland really was a place of mining), and the theoretical framework makes use of Ahmed’s and Wetherell’s interpretations of affective economies. Thus the study discusses emotional labour with a special focus on partnership, emotions and filtration, while visiting affective scenes and sites related to the mining of Greenland’s minerals. Greenland’s current position as a state in formation, while still reconciling with experiences from the past, affects relationship building, the openness to flirtation, and sometimes creates conflicts and hieratical structures between the potential partners to be.

Resource Extraction and Arctic Communities

“…An obvious topic for a humanities-based approach to mining and extraction is to take a closer look at such speaking positions. In previous work, we have argued that instead of accepting the prevailing discourse that emotions should be seen as irrelevant to the issue of extraction, we must analyze how emotions are included in the debate and with what effect (Bjørst, 2020;Thisted, 2020;Thisted, Sejersen, & Lien, 2021). Hence, we ask: What is the significance of the affective, which is usually excluded from the analysis of mining?…”

Wisdom of affect? Emotion, environment, and the future of resource extraction

“…One of the strongest impressions that I take from this special collection is the account of the annual meetings of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) in Toronto 2016 to 2019, presented by Lill Rastad Bjørst (2021). She reads the interaction between the Greenland representatives and the mining and prospecting companies as a flirtation game.…”

“…It was likely the fearful prospect of China de facto dominating the world's largest island and serving as the key to the Arctic and the Western hemisphere that served as an underlying strategic argument (Wendel-Hansen, 2019). Lill Rastad Bjørst (2021) shows how the mining companies too are part of the emotional economy and need to make similar claims on directions and temporalities. Presenting their mining prospects to local and national audiences, it is very little talk about money to shareholders.…”

Affective Approaches

“…An obvious topic for a humanities-based approach to mining and extraction is to take a closer look at such speaking positions. In previous work, we have argued that instead of accepting the prevailing discourse that emotions should be seen as irrelevant to the issue of extraction, we must analyze how emotions are included in the debate and with what effect (Bjørst, 2020;Thisted, 2020;Thisted, Sejersen, & Lien, 2021). Hence, we ask: What is the significance of the affective, which is usually excluded from the analysis of mining?…”