Beskrivelse
In the ongoing debate about climate change, culminating more recently in the COP15 summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, public engagement is given increasing prominence as a possible solution to the general lack of citizen participation in global issues. Recent years have seen a surge in public engagement initiatives, not only in Denmark but in many countries in the West. These initiatives often have to deal with dilemmas between participatory aspects and other considerations such as planning efficiency. This paper aims to explore these dilemmas on the basis of a case study of a local municipality.At a local level, several municipalities in Denmark have taken action to prevent climate change by for instance developing renewable energy sources. By 12 February 2010, out of 98 municipalities in Denmark, a total of 58 had declared themselves ‘Climate Municipalities’, thereby committing themselves to persistent reductions of CO2 emission over the next years. Among the front runners in this initiative is the municipality of Frederikshavn in northern Denmark, which has set the goal of 100 % reliance on renewable energy sources in 2015 for the largest part of the municipality, i.e. for the town of Frederikshavn and its outskirts with a total of 25,000 inhabitants.
Frederikshavn may be seen as a marginalized and in some ways disenfranchised community, which is partly a result of its location in the periphery of the centre of global north. The town is at risk of being abandoned by people who migrate to other areas of Denmark for jobs. To improve the situation of job losses as well as to develope a sustainable energy supply, citizens have been invited by local administrators to become ‘activists’ in a dialogical process.
In this paper, we examine a series of six meetings between citizen ‘activists’ and municipality representatives from a discourse analytical perspective (Fairclough 2003, Carvalho 2005). The meetings, which took place between January and August 2009, formed a space for negotiation, struggle and discursive construction of the ‘Energytown Frederikshavn’, which we approach by an analysis of critical discourse moments (Chilton, 1987; Gamson, 1992), i.e. moments in which decisions are made or central discursive understandings established. We shall argue that the project incorporates important elements of tension between top-down and bottom-up approaches, resulting from a conflict between the goal of participatory democracy and the overall political agenda of reaching a set target within a relatively short time span. Finally, we shall assess the character and degree of citizen participation in the process, and point to obstacles for and ways of encouraging local participation dealing with sustainability and climate change.
Oplæg sammen med Anders Horsbøl
| Periode | 12 okt. 2010 |
|---|---|
| Begivenhedstitel | ECREA 2010, Hamburg |
| Begivenhedstype | Konference |
| Arrangør | ECREA (Education and Communication Research Association) |
| Placering | Hamborg, TysklandVis på kort |