The Worldeater(s) in Process: Uncovering the Nexus of Conventional and ‘Green’ Extraction

Dunlap, Alexander; Jakobsen, Jostein

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-26852-7_5

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…These processes and effects of mining are oftentimes the result of combining ‘mining’ with ‘development’ (Skorstad et al., 2018). Meanwhile, as critics argue, extractivism implies that resources are removed from the region to generate profits elsewhere, causing local environmental degradation and the breakdown of rights and relations to land (for recent examples, see Dunlap & Jakobsen, 2020; Kirsch, 2014; Willow, 2018; Wilson & Stammler, 2016). Lately, research on mining and development has reiterated how mines bring uncertain and disruptive promises of ‘development’, as capitalist ventures acquire large land areas and transform environmental, social and economic aspects of the everyday lives of local communities (Bebbington & Humphreys Bebbington, 2018; Stiernström & Arora‐Jonsson, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable development and sacrifice in the rural North

Stiernström¹

2023

Sociologia Ruralis

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In this article, I examine how the grand narratives of sustainability, development and mining impact local governance in a Swedish municipality. I do this by studying three mining projects under implementation and relate them to notions of development and sacrifice to lend insights into what the new trends of mining in Europe outlined above mean for the rural North. I regard sustainable development as a political concept ascribed to activities (such as political programmes or investments). Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Storuman municipality, I show how politicians, political parties and government administrators position themselves in relation to the three mining projects. I provide a detailed account of perceptions, responses and practices in a local government that engage with three mining companies seeking to open mines within the municipal borders. I show how a tug of war between ideas of sustainable development or survival through sacrifice depoliticises and stabilises a dominant political line in favour of mining within local politics. While the respondents differed in what they thought that sacrifice might lead to, ranging from environmental disaster and social suffering to economic prosperity, I reveal a process wherein sustainable development becomes translated into ‘that which must be sacrificed’.

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