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Stories, emotions, partnerships and the quest for stable relationships in the Greenlandic mining sector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2020

Lill Rastad Bjørst Open the ORCID record for Lill Rastad Bjørst [Opens in a new window]
Lill Rastad Bjørst*
Affiliation:
Head of the Centre for Innovation and Research in Culture and Living in the Arctic, Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
*
Author for correspondence: Lill Rastad Bjørst, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study aims to understand the emotional labour and relationship building in connection to the expected mining industry in Greenland. Greenland mining is often portrayed as something that could create an economic basis for national independence which makes politicians curious about what a potential “partnership” could make possible. Envisioning future relationships (in debates about mining in Greenland) also set the framework for reinterpretation and redefinition of the past, to give meaning to promised new development; hence, this kind of future-making tends to be contested. The analysis centres around stories of what could be (if Greenland really was a place of mining), and the theoretical framework makes use of Ahmed’s and Wetherell’s interpretations of affective economies. Thus the study discusses emotional labour with a special focus on partnership, emotions and filtration, while visiting affective scenes and sites related to the mining of Greenland’s minerals. Greenland’s current position as a state in formation, while still reconciling with experiences from the past, affects relationship building, the openness to flirtation, and sometimes creates conflicts and hieratical structures between the potential partners to be.

Keywords

ArcticGreenlandExtractive IndustriesAffective EconomiesPartnershipMining
Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 56 , 2020 , e23
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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