Rural resistance and green-green conflicts

The project aims to investigate green-green conflicts in regional areas focusing how people with differing nature interests collectively articulate emotive-cognitive responses drawing on place and time. We define green-green conflicts to include all conflicts in which environmental values are pitted against each other.

Often such conflicts emerge in rural areas pulling together locals with differing ideological views.

We see green-green conflicts as cases both of clashing environmental nature interests and as cases of conflicting global/urban and local/rural values and priorities.

Conducting qualitative case studies of place-specific rural conflicts, where competing nature interests are being articulated and corresponding groups are formed, we investigate 1. Conflict lines and group boundaries around nature interests; 2. Collectively shared emotions and perceptions of local past, present, and future; 3.

Narration of the global threat of climate change in relation to local present and future.

Highlighting the impacts of national environmental and climate initiatives on rural areas, and the diversity of people and protest motives in these, the results will advance understanding of rural resistance and urban-rural polarization.

The project combines and contributes to research fields on green-green rural conflicts, climate change and temporality, and emotions and climate change.