CAS two new projects
One project lead by Malin Nystrand, with Ilse Renkens and Peter Leys as post-docs, focus on the relation between mineral extraction and colonial relations in Greenland and Swedish Sápmi. The research focus on what is here termed a ‘clash of moral imperatives’ between the pressure to extract minerals for the green transition and the need for reckoning with past and ongoing colonial injustices afflicting Indigenous Inuit and Sámi inhabitants of Greenland and Swedish Sápmi. The project will explore how these clashing imperatives are negotiated between ruling elites and local populations in prospective, proposed and ongoing extractive investments. It does so by identifying and comparing different forms of recognition (legal, socioeconomic, cultural) between ruling elites and local populations, asking how forms of recognition are activated or ignored in, and affect, the negotiation of moral imperatives in concrete investment cases. The project runs 2025-2028.
The other project is lead by Lars Buur, with Bj?rk T?rnqvist as PhD, Jacob Ulrich as post-doc and Javier Arnaut at Ilisimatusarfik as project member. The ’Green Value’ project explores a related dilemma: large investments in green energy and mining of critical minerals are needed for the green transition, but encroach on land belonging to indigenous and local communities and threaten their livelihoods and identities. This, in turn, creates conflicts which may disrupt the investments. Through a study of four very different cases in Greenland and South Africa the research will unpack how, why and by whom social and corporate value is defined and distributed in large green transition investment projects. The theoretical framework applied focus on institutions, policy assemblages and a broader understanding of value including monetary and non-monetary dimensions and temporality. The empirical research will lead to a better theoretical understanding of the politics of value creation in green transition investments and provide a basis to inform policy alternatives. This project runs 2024-2028.
The two projects are coordinated to share learnings and avoid overlaps, and the project members also explore synergies with other research projects or endeavours focusing on similar issues. Please get in touch with Malin Nystrand (malinn@ruc.dk) and/or Lars Buur (lbuur@ruc.dk) if you work on similar issues.