Paper short abstract:

Comparative analysis of the socio-cultural impact of emerging landscapes of energy in three European countries (Germany, France, Portugal) that have specific national traditions of this kind of energy production, identifying different groups in the process and how they manage conflictive interests.

Paper long abstract:

This poster proposes to present a joint project on "Wind energy and Landscape" (sponsored by French Energy Ministry)which is being carried out by an interdisciplinary working-team, constituted, besides myself, by Dorle Dracklé e Werner Krauss (anthropologists), Alain Nadai (socio-economist) and Martin Döring (linguistic).

The generic goal of the project is to observe and analyze how wind energy is being planted and accepted in different European countries (Germany, France and Portugal) that have specific national traditions of development of this kind of energy production. We will be looking for the impact of the emerging new landscapes of energy, specially those resulting from wind parks, aiming to identify the different groups interacting and understand how they balance the conflict between EU targets for the production of renewable energies (to fulfil until 2010) and the social, cultural political and economic negotiations implicit in the process.

Cases of success and protest will be analysed in order to understand how landscape is at the core of vulnerable policies. The project (lasting 36 months) has just been launched and by September will be able to exhibit visual material focusing the impact of wind parks on the landscape (case studies from the three countries) and underline main issues to pursue through documental review based on legislation and media articles in the 3 countries.