Social conflict and the making of a globalized place at Roşia Montană

The book provides a theoretically informed case study on the transformation of the experience of place in the two decades old conflict over the Roșia Montană mine in Romania. First, the case study is set within a political economy approach of mining places before and during globalization. The second theoretical approach used to illuminate the transformations of place is anthropological and draws on Clifford Geertz’s (1979) distinction between experience-nearness and experience-distance. Both these theoretical strands are employed to explain transformations in the experience of place and the subsequent making of a globalized place. In contrast to the majority of social-scientific research on Roșia Montană, which has used this case to illustrate broader arguments in political ecology or environmental justice (e.g. moral economies, degrowth or transnationalism), this book explores the shifting discourses and practices of various local and extra-local actors and how these have shaped the meanings of this place. Without claiming to be impartial, the book offers a critical interpretation of both corporate and social movement discourses as they shape the experience of place. The arguments are fleshed out using extensive empirical material (66 individual respondents being mentioned in the analysis) and contextualized interpretations of their views. The book concludes by arguing that Roșia Montană can offer a contemporary version of what Doreen Massey (1991) has called a ‘progressive notion of place’, one which will increasingly render extractive projects, both in Romania and worldwide, as critical nodes in a web of socio-ecological struggles and open-ended change. About the Author ..........................................................................................6 List of abbreviations .....................................................................................9 List of figures ......................................................................................... 10 List of tables ......................................................................................... .11 Chapter One Introduction ...................................................................... ..........13 The Guiding Questions of the Book ................................... ....................................22 Roşia Montană Vignette .................................................... ..............................23 Chapter Two More than Meets the Eye: Roşia Montană in Conflict ............................................................................. ...................31 Grassroots Environmental Conflicts .................................. ....................................33 The Trouble with Conflict .................................................. .............................36 Conflict more Complex than Previously Thought ............... ............................................40 Chapter Three Interpretations of the Local: Towards a Dynamic Understanding of Place ...................................................................................46 Communities are More than Grassroots Movements............................................................46 The Recent Focus on Community in Environmental Sociology ................................................................................................49 Current Views of the Community – Environment Nexus ....................................................................................................53 The Limits of the Community Concept ......................................................................55 Community vs. Place: The Sociological Perspective ........................................................57 Place and its Limitations: The Geographical Perspective ..............................................................................................62 Current Theories of Place and their Critique .............................................................64 Topogenesis: The Multiple Transformations of Place under Globalization ........................................................... ..........................69 Chapter Four Methodology and the Experience of the (Mine)field ...........................................76 Before Entering the Field: Early Conjectures .............................................................76 Entering the Field: One Situation, Many Definitions ......................................................80 Entering the (Mine)field: The Politics of the Project ....................................................92 The Selection of Respondents .............................................................................99 Applying the Research Instruments .......................................................................106 Analysis of the Information Gathered ....................................................................112 Limitations of the Methodology...........................................................................113 Chapter Five From Singular to Plural Regimes of Production: The Free-Floating Place .....................................................................................115 Conventional Approaches to the Trajectory of Place ......................................................117 The Pyramid of Places ...................................................................................124 Roşia Montană Unbound: The Emerge of a Freefloating Place ...................................................................................................129 New and Old Political Actors as Supporters and Opponents ...............................................................................................139 The Re-Mooring of Place or Its Continued Freefloating? .........................................................................................................142 Chapter Six Location, Landscape and Community as Experience-distancing Processes .........................................................................146 The Transformation of Roşia Montană .....................................................................146 (Dis)locating the Place: The Mining Company .............................................................147 The Unexpected Consequences of Distancing: The Extra-local Opponents ...................................................................................155 Transformations in the Experience of Location: Pathways and Cultural Spaces ............................................................................160 Some Unexpected Outcomes of Pathways: The Locals ..................................................................................................164 Cultural Spaces: The Extra-local Opponents ..............................................................168 Place and Landscape .....................................................................................172 The Leisure Landscape: Extra-local opponents ............................................................174 The Industrial Landscape: ‘Sterilizing’ History and Displacing People .......................................................................................183 Chapter Seven Location, Landscape, Community and Livelihoods: Experience-Nearing Processes ............................................................................189 Uncertainty in a Free-floating, Globalized Place ........................................................189 The Creation of New Geographies of Risks ................................................................194 Following the Pathways of Risks and Opportunities .......................................................196 Surprise and Paradox at Roşia Montană ...................................................................201 Chapter Eight Conclusion ................................................................................216 Appendix ................................................................................................224 Bibliography ............................................................................................235 Acknowledgments .........................................................................................259 Index ...................................................................................................262