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- Convenors:
-
Branko Banovic
(Institute of Ethnography, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts)
Miloš Milenković (University of Belgrade - Faculty of Philosophy)
Jelena Vasiljevic (Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 0G/007
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
The ongoing energy transition generates many challenges across the globe and it provokes controversies imbued with various locally generated features. The aim of this panel is to provide anthropological insights into debates over phasing-down coal in vulnerable regions of coal-dependent economies.
Long Abstract:
The ongoing energy transition which aims at replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy impacts many aspects of human life and provokes various locally generated controversies across the globe. In vulnerable regions of coal-dependent economies thermal power plants and coal mining industries are the main generators of a large number of direct and related jobs and the largest revenue source for the local budgets. Although coal use is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gas emissions and although coal-fired power plants are among the worst sources of toxic air pollutants globally, people living in the towns whose economy is based on electricity production from coal-fired power plants worry that the strategies and actions on phasing-down coal will inevitably affect loosing thousands of related jobs and finally lead to the total collapse of entire towns. As the local people are exposed to contradictory and conflicting information on environmental, health and economic consequences of coal combustion in their towns as well as on advantages and disadvantages of phasing-down coal, controversies over environmental issues contain many phenomena that need anthropological clarification. Scientists from various fields deal with the ongoing energy transition and the phenomena that accompany it. The aim of this panel is to show that anthropology is indispensable for a complete understanding of the one of the most important economic and environmental policy tasks of the contemporary world as well as to point out the theoretical and practical potential of the anthropology of mining as a still under-established field of research.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
Having in mind that the extraction of raw materials and minerals is a complex and contested social process, the focus of this research is on parallels between controversies over shutting down TPP Pljevlja, Montenegro, and opening a jadarite mine (ie. lithium) near the city of Loznica, Serbia.
Paper long abstract:
The ongoing energy transition which aims at replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy impacts many aspects of human life and provokes various locally generated controversies across the globe. In the Western Balkans economies thermal power plants and coal mining industries are particularly important generators of a large number of direct and related jobs and the largest revenue source for the local budgets. Although coal use is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gas emissions and although coal-fired power plants are among the worst sources of toxic air pollutants in the Western Balkans countries, people living in the towns whose economy is based on electricity production from coal-fired power plants worry that the strategies and actions on phasing-down coal will inevitably affect loosing thousands of related jobs and finally lead to the total collapse of entire towns. As the local people are exposed to contradictory and conflicting information on environmental, health and economic consequences of coal combustion in their towns as well as on advantages and disadvantages of phasing-down coal, controversies over environmental issues contain many phenomena that need anthropological clarification. Having in mind that raw materials and minerals (in particular) are highly socialized products whose extraction is a complex and contested political, economic and social process, the focus of this research is on parallels between controversies over shutting down TPP Pljevlja, Montenegro, and opening a jadarite mine (ie. lithium) near the city of Loznica, Serbia.
Paper short abstract:
Analysis of meteorological data and energy consumption for the last two decades in Poland show an increase in the demand for electricity during heat waves and frosts. This leads to question in the public discourse the renewables as not as reliable as conventional energy sources.
Paper long abstract:
Polish power grid is operating at the limit of its efficiency. However, requiring modernization and huge financial outlays, it still supplies electricity to households and enterprises. This happens despite the ever-increasing demand for energy.
The electricity supply system is also vulnerability due to the consequences of the climate change. Meteorological extremes expose infrastructure to damage. We focus on a slightly different aspect, namely temperature extremes - heat waves and frost waves.
Frequency and severity of heat waves are increasing. We look at the meteorological data on temperature values and compare them with the data on energy consumption in the last two decades in Poland. The analysis shows that in the period of heat waves and frost waves in Poland the demand for electricity increases significantly. It is important because at this time, apart from the increase in consumption, the efficiency of the already sensitive electricity production system decreases. This is due to the characteristics of the studied meteorological phenomena, during which significantly lower wind speeds, more intense evaporation and less precipitation are noted.
Therefore it can be concluded that at the moment the answer in crisis moments are not only renewable energy sources, but a diversification of energy sources. Nevertheless, that fuels the public discourse on conventional energy production as the most reliable, omitting the fact that it results in climate change and further decrease of its efficiency.
Acknowledgements: This research has been funded by the National Science Center of Poland under the grant number: 2018/31/B/HS4/03223
Paper short abstract:
Coal mining in Upper Nitra will be closed in 2023. Based on researching the socio-political context of technological drama and Bourdieu's field of local power we analyse the main stakeholders' roles, position and narratives in the process and prevailing narratives of the transformation.
Paper long abstract:
The decision to phase out coal mining in Upper Nitra has been made in 2018 and the mine will be definitely closed in 2023. Although the central role of the mining industry has been steadily declining as the regional economy transforms, the impact on the direct and related jobs causes many uncertainties. The Just Transition and other EU and governmental resources should counterbalance negative impacts, but it would require concentrated efforts of all involved stakeholders. Our approach is based on researching the socio-political context of technological drama, 'Actor-Network theory and local f Bourdieu' field of local power determine responses and/or coping strategies of different actors exposed to technological change. There are 3 perspectives in political context here: Imposing, coping and resisting. Or what Brian Pfaffenberger (1992) coins in the concept of technological drama as technological regularization, technological adjustment and technological reconstitution. We thus analyse the main stakeholders' role, position and narratives in the process using the framework of 3 constituencies: (i) Technological Regularisation (IMPOSE); (ii) Technological Adjustment (COPY); and (iii) Technological Reconstitution (RESIST). The once-hot political struggle ceases after the decision and the opposition is now fragmented and re-focusing on the efficiency of the process, perceived corruption or incompetence of the local political elites to utilise available opportunities provided by the incoming funding. In our analyses, we operationalised two prevailing narratives – a positive one and a negative one. We label them for the purpose of this study as (1) Green Region of the Future and (2) Dilapidated House.
Paper short abstract:
This paper critically evaluates the performative enactment and logistical operations of the energy transition in the port of Rotterdam. By looking at how relation to the (re)production of industrial accumulation.
Paper long abstract:
Under increased public pressure to reduce C02 emissions, the port of Rotterdam is in the process of becoming a “sustainable port” that can, however, still provide economic growth. This paradoxical drive for “green growth” leads to tensions and contradictions on the work floor and has far-reaching repercussions for the everyday lives and health of dockworkers, particularly in industrial sectors that are to become obsolete. By drawing on ongoing fieldwork with unions, port officials, and dockworkers in the coal sector in the port of Rotterdam, this paper directs ethnographic attention to the way labor arrangements are being reconfigured in light of the energy transition.
The empirical focus of this paper is two-pronged. On the one hand, I will trace the performative work that goes into creating a “sustainable port”, and analyze how talk of the energy transition operates as a mechanism to justify a continuing infrastructural lock-in with the fossil fuel industry. In addition, I will also examine what the energy transition means ‘on the ground’ by analyzing how workers in the coal sector are subjected to the rhythms of the global economy, how they try to mitigate detrimental health effects to their bodies in the long run, and how they deal with the prospect of supposed obsolescence in a sustainable port landscape. In this way, this paper critically evaluates the performative enactment and logistical operations of the energy transition in relation to the (re)production of industrial accumulation.
Paper short abstract:
The discourse analysis of a media corpus of 823 regional press articles brings us closer to understanding the change of hegemonic discourses experienced in a Spanish mining basin after the implementation of Just Transition policies and measures.
Paper long abstract:
In the context of the process of coal phase-out in Spain, the analysis of how the regional media have picked up the policies and measures of Just Transition (JT) can help to understand the process of (re)creation of discursive legitimacy experienced in regions historically dependent on coal. The aim of this paper is to analyse the change of discursive hegemony in a mining basin about energy transition, in the Spanish region of Aragon. A systematic search has been carried out in 12 regional newspapers (3 written press and 9 digital press) to generate a document corpus of 823 news published between 2010 and 2021; the corpus has been analysed by applying an argumentative discursive methodology (Hajer, 1995), with the support of MAXQDA software. The analysis indicates that: 1) the JT instruments of the Spanish government have been the main resource to generate discourses of hope in the territories with the promise of distributive and procedural justice; 2) the struggle of ideas, actors and discursive arguments has led to a change in the semantics and connections between the concepts of transition and justice; 3) the process is reflecting the hegemonic replacement of the coal regime discourse by the discourse of green technologies; and 4) the discourse of resistance is maintained and counter-hegemonic narratives persist with new argumentative forms: Communities that once mobilized in defence of coal are now mobilizing against renewable macro-projects, refusing to accept the scenarios of opportunity and hope based on green technologies (wind and solar) promised from the central government.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the dynamics between embedding and localizing just transition away from carbon-based economic development based on the ethnographic study carried out in a small town in Southern Poland - Brzeszcze.
Paper long abstract:
This paper discusses the dynamics between embedding and localizing just transition away from carbon-based economic development based on the ethnographic study carried out in a small town in Southern Poland - Brzeszcze. By reconstructing the narratives of local inhabitants and Kraków-based technical experts who arrive in Brzeszcze with ready-made revitalization projects, we argue that in order to offer new development pathways, just transition projects need to become embedded, i.e. originate in the hybridization of local materiality, values, and culture (Jasanoff 2015), rather than mere localization. Localization, we argue, lacks hybridization and stands for the implementation of various techno-fixes or blacked-boxed projects in a top-down process. Our study focuses on the transition of a community that is marginal in many ways. (1) Brzeszcze is a small mining town located outside Silesia, and thus without as much financial resources and political attention as the Silesian mining towns under the EU-subsidized national and regional just transition programs. (2) Brzeszcze is located at the margins of Poland’s carbonscape which results in several challenges posed to the ways in which the material, institutional and cultural manifestations of carbon-based energy systems (Haarstad and Wanvik 2016) are changing under the impact of post-mining revitalization programs offered by the experts from a nearby technical university from Kraków. (3) Gradual decommissioning of the mining sites and the subsequent decline of the city, leaves the inhabitants feeling deprived of agency and marginalized. Over the last years, Brzeszcze has become a demonstration site for landscape revitalization projects, which do not become embedded into the complex context of the marginal position of this town and tend to function as non-spaces for local communities. This gives little hope for leading the vulnerable communities of mine workers out onto a new path of economic development.