Learning lessons from natural resource conflicts

Natural resource projects are often controversial. This is the case with traditional mining and drilling operations as well as green resource projects like wind farms. I explore such controversies concentrating particularly on why some local people protest and what solutions are possible. In doing so I avoid the concept of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) and focus instead on such things as history, culture, language, ownership and control of resources, justice and competing visions of sustainable development. People’s relationship to place and how communities are positioned in relation to technical, political and economic processes operating at national and global levels are important.

Murphy, J. and Smith, A. (2013) Understanding transition-periphery dynamics: renewable energy in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, Environment and Planning A, Vol. 45, pp. 691-709.

Murphy, J. (2013) Place and exile: resource conflicts and sustainability in Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, Local Environment, Vol. 18, No. 7-8, pp. 801-816.

Murphy, J. (2011) From place to exile, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 473-478.

Murphy, J. (2009) At The Edge: Walking the Atlantic Coast of Ireland and Scotland, Sandstone Press, Highlands.