Wind Energy on Trial in Saepmie: Epistemic Controversies and Strategic Ignorance in Norway’s Green Energy Transition
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https://hdl.handle.net/10037/35236Date
2023-08-29Type
Journal articleTidsskriftartikkel
Peer reviewed
Author
Fjellheim, Eva Maria BircherAbstract
Climate change policies and the green energy transition have renewed colonial structures and
injustices for Indigenous peoples in land-use conflicts, but not without resistance. This article
explores epistemic controversies in a legal struggle concerning impacts from wind energy
infrastructure on Southern Saami reindeer herding and culture in Norway. The article draws on
courtroom ethnography and diverse written material concerning a court case between the wind
energy company Fosen Vind DA and the Southern Saami reindeer herders in Fovsen Njaarke Sïjte.
The findings show that the parties’ competing claims to truth rely on different knowledge systems
and worldviews concerning what Southern Saami reindeer herding is an ought to be. However,
beyond onto-epistemological struggles between the “Indigenous” and the “Western”, Fosen Vind
DA and the Norwegian state strategically ignored all knowledges that threatened capitalist and
green colonial interests. The Fosen case illustrates how Indigenous peoples can contest dominant
knowledge regimes and colonial presumptions about their livelihoods, culture, and rights through
the legal system. However, the Norwegian state’s reluctancy to respect the outcome of the Supreme
Court verdict reveals that asymmetric power relations continue to pave the way for colonial
dispossession of Saami landscapes, epistemes, and human rights in the green energy transition.
Is part of
Fjellheim, E.M. (2024). Resisting unfinished colonial business in Southern Saami reindeer herding landscapes: Struggles over knowledges, worldviews, and values. (Doctoral thesis). https://hdl.handle.net/10037/35231Publisher
Cappelen DammCitation
Fjellheim. Wind Energy on Trial in Saepmie: Epistemic Controversies and Strategic Ignorance in Norway’s Green Energy Transition. Arctic Review on Law and Politics. 2022;14:140-168Metadata
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