Affect, risk and local politics of knowledge: changing land use in Narrabri, NSW

Abstract

As conflicts emerge over land use when extractive industries arrive, what counts as legitimate knowledge about the risks generated by these developments becomes important to how individuals formulate their opinions. This article analyses knowledge, risk and perceptions of future land use in the Narrabri Shire, a rural area in Australia. In a risk society, especially a 'post-truth' one, the production of knowledge, whether scientific, political, media or commercially driven, does not provide more security and certainty, but more insecurity and uncertainty. This article uses Bourdieusian concepts informed with theoretical insights about affect and emotion to understand how reflexivity about risks and environmental politics are interpreted. Land use practices are emotional for some local farmers, where their 'sense of one's place' is structured by their deep connection with the land and is therefore structuring of their land use politics. For others, their response may be couched as more economically 'rational', but this also expresses an emotional position in an affective economy that destabilises traditional economic understandings of rational/emotional dichotomies. Affect and illusio can contribute to understanding the colour and intensity of the positions occupied in response to land use disputes.

Who Speaks for the Place? Cultural Dynamics of Conflicts Over Hazardous Industrial Development

“…Drawing on theories from cultural sociology (Davidson 2019; Farrell 2015; Goodwin et al 2001; Lamont and Thévenot 2000; Norgaard 2006) is productive for examining how people contest who can speak for a place and construct notions of justice. Research is needed on the cultural meanings that inform how people assert legitimacy in making decisions about land use and how different groups interpret risks from development depending on whether it bolsters or threatens emotional place‐based identities (Threadgold et al 2018). Still, these cultural processes and local dynamics need to be understood in relation to political‐economic factors and national and global processes.…”

“…Place identities animate political conflicts because of the powerful emotional meanings tied to a sense of community and connections to land (Cramer 2016; Oberhauser, Krier, and Kusow 2019; Threadgold et al 2018) and ideas about who is an insider and outsider. Cramer (2016) finds that a rural consciousness contributed to a rightward political swing in rural Wisconsin based on resentment that outside and urban elites disparage rural communal values and that urbanites are getting unequal resources and privileges.…”

“…Place identities are especially powerful in motivating support and opposition to development, which can be interpreted as strengthening or risking a sense of place (Kreye et al 2017; Zavestoski et al 2002). In rural areas, an emotional sense of community is often linked to landscapes defined by industry such as mining and agriculture (Threadgold et al 2018). In mining communities, collective memories of struggle and hard work create a sense of shared class experiences and solidarity (Lewin 2019).…”

“…To address these questions, I connect environmental sociology with scholarship about place (Agnew and Duncan 1989; Gieryn 2000) and cultural politics (Eliasoph and Lichterman 2003; Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001; Lamont and Thévenot 2000), which contributes to the growing research on culture in environmental conflicts by emphasizing the role of place‐based identities (Farrell 2015; Norgaard 2011; Threadgold et al 2018). Instead of presuming resource extraction is a risk, I explore how social actors themselves understand whether industrial development is risky and creates justice, or injustice, through cultural repertoires, particularly emotionally powerful meanings of place.…”

Divergent memories and visions of the future in conflicts over mining development

“…Second, I use theories of emotional politics and nostalgia (Bonnett 2016;Mukta and Hardiman 2000;Norgaard 2011;Raynes et al 2016;Scott 2013;Threadgold et al 2018) to argue that the affective meanings of time in environmental imaginaries animate conflicts over extractive industries. I show how emotions of nostalgia and hope drive mobilization, and shape the different ways that social actors interpret predictions of job creation and environmental risks and legitimate their positions.…”