Contested Energy Spaces ― Disassembling Energyscapes of the Canadian North

This authored brief discusses how to conceptualize the socio-material complexity of contested energy spaces in the Canadian North, specifically in the context of indigenous communities that have allowed industrial developments to occur on their lands despite the environmental and lifestyle consequences. By applying assemblage theory, the author identifies contested energy spaces as complex places or situations that need to be understood through geographical concepts of place, scale, and power. In 6 chapters, the book challenges preconceptions of indigenous peoples as victims by examining communities that favor industrial developments, and identifies instabilities in the Canadian North to analyze the power relations between industry, state and indigenous communities. The book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, teachers and lecturers, and geography scholars.

Tarje I. Wanvik is a Ph.D. researcher in the Department of Geography at the University of Bergen, and an independent consultant assisting organizations and businesses with Corporate Social Responsibility, fundraising, organizational development and strategic communication. He has hands-on experience as a researcher and communicator from public, private and non-governmental sector management, and is co-founder of Spaces of Climate and Energy Laboratory (SpaceLab) and Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET).