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A "giant furrow" or a "way to economic prosperity"? A conflict in the meaning of environmental sustainability - the case of Rail Baltica mega-project

Ristmae, Maiken LU (2022) SGEM08 20221
Department of Human Geography
Abstract
This thesis examines the conflict situation that has emerged around the environmental discourse in the planning process of a railway mega-project in Estonia. A discourse analysis is carried out on policy documents, publications, and interviews following Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and methodological guidelines, to examine the ways that the concept of sustainability conflicts between stakeholders. The politics of scale theoretical framework is used to examine the stakeholders’ spatial thinking inherent to environmental sustainability concept. The results show that in the case of Rail Baltica mega-project, on the one side, the developers construct the meaning of environmental sustainability on a large EU-scale and argue for a new... (More)
This thesis examines the conflict situation that has emerged around the environmental discourse in the planning process of a railway mega-project in Estonia. A discourse analysis is carried out on policy documents, publications, and interviews following Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and methodological guidelines, to examine the ways that the concept of sustainability conflicts between stakeholders. The politics of scale theoretical framework is used to examine the stakeholders’ spatial thinking inherent to environmental sustainability concept. The results show that in the case of Rail Baltica mega-project, on the one side, the developers construct the meaning of environmental sustainability on a large EU-scale and argue for a new direct railway, while on the other side, the citizens depart on a local scale as they frame environmental sustainability to follow the local context and argue for the reconstruction of an existing railway. This shows that the stakeholders frame the environmental sustainability on a particular scale to fix specific spatial thinking in environmental discourse, and thus, legitimise particular spatial changes, and hierarchisation of scales in the planning process. Therefore, the sustainability discourse in mega-project development entails a specific scalar understanding, which is highly struggled over and serves a political function. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Ristmae, Maiken LU
supervisor
organization
course
SGEM08 20221
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
environmental sustainability, scale, politics of scale, discourse, mega-project, planning process
language
English
id
9098890
date added to LUP
2022-09-01 12:18:29
date last changed
2022-09-01 12:18:29
@misc{9098890,
  abstract     = {{This thesis examines the conflict situation that has emerged around the environmental discourse in the planning process of a railway mega-project in Estonia. A discourse analysis is carried out on policy documents, publications, and interviews following Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and methodological guidelines, to examine the ways that the concept of sustainability conflicts between stakeholders. The politics of scale theoretical framework is used to examine the stakeholders’ spatial thinking inherent to environmental sustainability concept. The results show that in the case of Rail Baltica mega-project, on the one side, the developers construct the meaning of environmental sustainability on a large EU-scale and argue for a new direct railway, while on the other side, the citizens depart on a local scale as they frame environmental sustainability to follow the local context and argue for the reconstruction of an existing railway. This shows that the stakeholders frame the environmental sustainability on a particular scale to fix specific spatial thinking in environmental discourse, and thus, legitimise particular spatial changes, and hierarchisation of scales in the planning process. Therefore, the sustainability discourse in mega-project development entails a specific scalar understanding, which is highly struggled over and serves a political function.}},
  author       = {{Ristmae, Maiken}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{A "giant furrow" or a "way to economic prosperity"? A conflict in the meaning of environmental sustainability - the case of Rail Baltica mega-project}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}