Projects involved in the Political Ecology Research Group

ENERGETHICS - Norwegian energy companies abroad.  Expanding the anthropological understanding of corporate social responsibility

Norwegian energy companies are increasingly ‘going global’, and when companies invest abroad, in projects that often involve contested environmental and social issues, they must realte to standards for corporate social responsibility (CSR). This project explores which difference it makes whether the corporate ethics of a company is framed in relation to a corporatist state and based on a ‘Nordic model of CSR’. This is of particular interest since studies have shown that CSR is frequently used as an instrument by international capital and trans-national corporations to replace the state as funder and organizer of welfare, education, governance and societal development in general.

Ongoing PhD projects:

Marianna Betti, “Oil and the Logics of Expectation and Trust in Turkana”.

In this PhD study, Betti investigates the complex encounter of the different groups who are involved in the recent discovery of hydrocarbons in Turkana, Northern Kenya. She will also map the attitudes of Turkana people in light of the allure of oil development, their expressions of hope, worry and trust. Inspired by previous research in the region, She will explore if traditional social norms continue to inform the social behaviors, livelihood strategies and mechanisms of survival of Turkana people when confronted with the inevitable socio-economic controversies which oil might stir. She will examine if these strategies become more evident when they confront extraneous sets of logics like those of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and religious groups, the Kenyan State apparatus and the oil company operating in Turkana, Tullow.

Michael Vina, When Rivers Don't Meet the Sea: Environmental Change, Seascape Assemblages, and Fishers' Ecological Knowledge in Coastal Ecuador

Abstract