Boaz Peters

Urban Transformations & Sustainability: Transitional Territories

‘More Oil’ scenario map - Kvaløya island in the spring

Confronting the Norwegian paradox - Decomposing socio-territorial conflicts through modern and indigenous worldviews on time and space in Finnmark, Norway

The development of the oil and gas industry causes friction between the indigenous Sámi and non-indigenous people in Arctic Norway.  The county of Finnmark is culturally fragile due to a complex history of colonisation. Today, conflicts arise surrounding increases in urbanisation, which prevent Sámi reindeer herders from following their ancestral ways of reindeer pastoralism.

This thesis explores ways of integrating indigenous knowledge into decision-making processes in Hammerfest – as opposed to the current linear development of planning processes, which is aimed at the continuation of oil and gas extraction. By adopting indigenous approaches of the concept of time and indigenous herding knowledge, the project introduces new tools and methods for creating synergies between actors with conflicting interests. The triangulation of spatial modelling, cinematographic strategies and scenario building confronts both old and recently manifested uncertainties in the oil industry, and aid in co-creating awareness, as well as allowing space for Sámi agency in the future.

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