‘This isn’t about land, this is about people’: Stories of resistance to wind energy

• In Event: 2251 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 13. Environmental Social Movements

Abstract

Approaches to understanding resistance to wind projects often focus on one or more factors that influence the success of wind energy implementation. How individuals engage with wind energy in their community, however, is associated with far more than the ‘enabling factors and barriers’ that are often emphasized within empirical studies. Moving beyond a ‘barriers’ approach to research, we seek to give voice to public concern and resistance to wind power, in which experiences with neighbor conflicts and community decline are revealed to be as important as the design and implementation of wind energy infrastructures themselves. By asking what is the experience of wind energy development from a landowner perspective, we take seriously, and consider more deeply, public resistance to renewable energy transition. Through in-depth interviews conducted with landowners and key informants (n = 36), we identify impacts on community relations and ‘neighboring’ as well as threats to individual and community identity brought about by wind energy. Among energy researchers, the benefits of wind energy are rarely scrutinized. But without careful consideration for the personal experiences of communities that host wind farms, social and economic benefits to landowners and communities are not likely to be realized.

Authors

• Aleksandra Afanasyeva, University of Alberta

• Debra J. Davidson, Univesity of Alberta

• John R Parkins, University of Alberta