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The “Dark Side” of Marine Spatial Planning: A study of domination, empowerment and freedom through theories of discourse and power
Södertörn University, School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies, Environmental Science. (Environmental Studies)ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2264-6892
2019 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

This thesis aims to contribute to the marine spatial planning (MSP) literature by elaborating a robust theoretical account of power for a more rigorous and balanced critical analysis of MSP. Conceived as a problem-solving regime, MSP has emerged as a radical approach to govern the use and protection of marine resources. However, critics are questioning the radicalness of MSP, particularly its ability to address issues around knowledge, stakeholder and land-sea integration, as well as power asymmetry, distributive justice and equity. Nonetheless, critics largely conceive power in MSP as restricting agency. Even so, insidious mechanisms of power remain under-examined, as are the productive power and potential of planning. This thesis brings concepts from discourse and power theories together (drawing on Foucault, Laclau and Mouffe, and Haugaard) to conceptualize various mechanisms of power in MSP. The framework is then brought into dialogue with planning issues in Estonia and Poland. Empirical data are drawn from semi-structured interviews, legal judgments, planning and policy documents, as well as position papers and media statements, which are produced by planners, officials, developers, fishers and coastal residents. The following findings and conclusions are reached. First, MSP’ing (verb form) restricts agency because (a) in planning encounters, powerful actors misuse opportunities for concerted action to reach sectoral rather than collective goals; (b) in setting the agenda, various biases are mobilized in favor of vested interests; and (c) the fantasmatic power of planning conjoin with the planner’s cognitive limitation to naturalize and sustain subjugation. Second, MSP is a laudable system. It provides stakeholders with the dispositional power to get things done in concert, which entails a normatively felicitous move from the risks of open commons-type conflicts and chaos to structuring and predictability. Third, when planning is rigidly done within the confines of legality and programmatic norms, “free” subjects of planning may be transformed into immovable subjects of resistance, who may develop contestatory strategies that have transformatory potentials. Fourth, to both facilitate equitable planning processes and outcomes, and ensure efficiency and stability, not only must the planner be reflective of the norms and ideologies that shape her actions and/or inactions, but the state as the ultimate governing authority in MSP must also take measures to minimize asymmetries in the distribution of social resources. The thesis makes a call for scholars to contribute towards planning praxis through analyzing who the weakest actors are in each MSP setting, what their context-specific needs are, and what empowerment may entail for them.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2019. , p. 180
Series
Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations, ISSN 1652-7399 ; 164
Keywords [en]
marine spatial planning; discourse; power; domination; empowerment; freedom; conflict; resistance; small-scale fisheries; offshore wind energy
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Environmental Studies; Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-38051Local ID: 2186/3.1.1/2014ISBN: 978-91-88663-67-2 (print)ISBN: 978-91-88663-68-9 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-38051DiVA, id: diva2:1306941
Public defence
2019-05-29, MA624, Alfred Nobels allé 7, Huddinge, 13:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Projects
BaltSpaceAvailable from: 2019-05-08 Created: 2019-04-25 Last updated: 2019-05-09Bibliographically approved
List of papers
1. Taking power to sea: Towards a post-structuralist discourse theoretical critique of marine spatial planning
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Taking power to sea: Towards a post-structuralist discourse theoretical critique of marine spatial planning
2018 (English)In: Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, ISSN 2399-6544, E-ISSN 2399-6552, Vol. 36, no 2, p. 58-273Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Responding to calls for a more theoretically driven, post-positivist and radical marine spatial planning research that approaches the policy as a political project, this paper develops a poststructuralist discourse theory approach to critical marine spatial planning. Elaborating radical contingency as an ontological condition of social life, which points to the ineradicability of power and conflict in marine spatial planning social relations, the paper problematizes marine spatial planning as constituting politics, or key practices that attempt to organize human coexistence and thus, conceal this radical contingency. These practices (e.g. ecosystem-based management, participation, planning regulation and the organization of socio-natural spaces), whose outcomes are far from adaptive, consensual or neutral are discussed as sites of ‘politics’ that effectively marginalize particular groups of people and ‘herd’ their participation and ways of knowing toward achieving limited policy outcomes. Drawing on the EU Marine Spatial Planning Directive, the paper further teases out how specific narratives and rhetorical signifiers around ‘integrating’ and ‘balancing’ potentially irreconcilable sustainable development objectives may interpellate particular stakeholders in ways that render them ideologically complicitous in sustaining, rather than challenging, neoliberal logics of managerialism and economic maximization of marine resources. But in tune with the ontological condition of the social as radically contingent, the paper discusses how and why participatory spaces may constitute a potential space of contestation for marginalized voices and thus, reveal the political moment of marine spatial planning. Calls are made for future empirically grounded research that explores how these marine spatial planning practices are lived in both planning and extra-planning settings, and with what implications for marine protection and extant social relations of power in different marine spatial planning contexts.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2018
Keywords
Critical marine spatial planning, post-structuralist discourse theory, ecosystem-based management, participation, power (politics and the political)
National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Environmental Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-32811 (URN)10.1177/2399654417707527 (DOI)000429797300005 ()2-s2.0-85033586255 (Scopus ID)2186/3.1.1/2014 (Local ID)2186/3.1.1/2014 (Archive number)2186/3.1.1/2014 (OAI)
Projects
BaltSpace
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 27/2014Swedish Research Council FormasEU, FP7, Seventh Framework Programme
Available from: 2017-06-14 Created: 2017-06-14 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved
2. The Politics of Estonia's Offshore Wind Energy Programme: Discourse, power and marine spatial planning
Open this publication in new window or tab >>The Politics of Estonia's Offshore Wind Energy Programme: Discourse, power and marine spatial planning
2019 (English)In: Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, ISSN 2399-6544, E-ISSN 2399-6552, Vol. 37, no 1, p. 157-176Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

There is growing recognition that marine spatial planning is an inherently political process marked by a clash of discourses, power and conflicts of interest. Yet, there are very few attempts to make sense of and explain the political practices of marine spatial planning protests in different contexts, especially the way that planners and developers create the conditions for the articulation of objections, and then develop new strategies to negotiate and mediate community resistance. Using poststructuralist discourse theory, the article analyses the politics of a proposed offshore wind energy project in Estonia within the context of the country’s marine spatial planning processes. First, through the lens of politicization, it explores the strategies of political mobilization and the rival discourses of expertise and sustainability through which residents and municipal actors have contested the offshore wind energy project. Secondly, through the lens of depoliticization, it explains the discursive and legalistic strategies employed by developers, planners and an Administrative Court to displace – spatially and temporally – the core issues of contestation, thus legitimizing the offshore wind energy plan. We argue that the spaces created by the preplanning conjuncture offered the most conducive conditions for residents to voice concerns about the proposed project in a dialogical fashion, whereas the marine spatial planning and post-planning phases became mired in a therapeutic-style consultation, set alongside rigid and unreflexive interpretations and applications of legality. We conclude by setting out the limits of the Estonian marine spatial planning as a process for resolving conflicts, while offering an alternative model of handling such public controversies, which we call pragmatic adversarialism.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2019
Keywords
Marine spatial planning, politicization and depoliticization, discourse theory and power, offshore wind energy conflict, discourses and resistance strategies
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Baltic and East European studies; Environmental Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-34961 (URN)10.1177/2399654418778037 (DOI)000458856000008 ()2-s2.0-85047821963 (Scopus ID)2186/3.1.1/2014 (Local ID)2186/3.1.1/2014 (Archive number)2186/3.1.1/2014 (OAI)
Projects
BaltSpace
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 27/2014BONUS - Science for a better future of the Baltic Sea regionSwedish Research Council Formas
Available from: 2018-05-15 Created: 2018-05-15 Last updated: 2023-12-12Bibliographically approved
3. Small-scale fishers as allies or opponents?: Unlocking looming tensions and potential exclusions in Poland’s marine spatial planning
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Small-scale fishers as allies or opponents?: Unlocking looming tensions and potential exclusions in Poland’s marine spatial planning
2019 (English)In: Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, ISSN 1523-908X, E-ISSN 1522-7200, Vol. 21, no 6, p. 637-648Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The success of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) depends on the effective participation of small-scale fishers (SSFs), and the extent to which marine governance in general can address the problems they face. As Poland's MSP in areas that are key to small-scale fisheries are yet to begin, this paper explores tensions in the country's looming coastal MSP processes through clarifying both the risks faced by SSFs and their perspectives on MSP. Using semi-structured interviews with SSFs and analytical literature reviews on small-scale fisheries, it is found that Poland's MSP is cast against a contentious history of marine resource management that shapes negative perceptions of and attitudes towards both the European Union-mediated MSP and marine scientists. Notably, SSFs believe that (1) authorities often undervalue and underutilize their experiential knowledge, (2) MSP is intended primarily to facilitate the siting of offshore wind farms and, (3) scientific knowledge is either not effectively communicated or is at the service of investors. A discussion follows that proposes measures through which planners can ensure procedural fairness. The paper concludes by offering TURF-Reserves as a novel and integrated co-management system within MSP which has potentials for empowering SSFs and revitalizing Poland's small-scale fisheries, while ensuring effective marine protection.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2019
Keywords
Small-scale fishers; Poland; TURF-Reserves; ocean governance and marine spatial planning; inclusion and exclusion
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Environmental Studies; Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-38060 (URN)10.1080/1523908X.2019.1661235 (DOI)000484318400001 ()2-s2.0-85071363746 (Scopus ID)2186/3.1.1/2014 (Local ID)2186/3.1.1/2014 (Archive number)2186/3.1.1/2014 (OAI)
Projects
BaltSpace
Funder
BONUS - Science for a better future of the Baltic Sea region, 185The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 2186/3.1.1/2014
Note

Som manuskript i avhandling. As manuscript in dissertation.

Available from: 2019-04-25 Created: 2019-04-25 Last updated: 2021-12-17Bibliographically approved
4. Re-reading marine spatial planning through Foucault, Haugaard and others: An analysis of domination, empowerment and freedom
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Re-reading marine spatial planning through Foucault, Haugaard and others: An analysis of domination, empowerment and freedom
2019 (English)In: Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, ISSN 1523-908X, E-ISSN 1522-7200, Vol. 21, no 6, p. 754-768Article in journal (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has emerged as a radical approach to achieving sustainable development objectives at sea. While critics challenge its avowed radicalness, often through highlighting dominative processes, more insidious mechanisms of restricted agency remain under-elaborated, as are the productive power and potential of planning. This paper offers a more robust and balanced reading of MSP/power. First, drawing on Haugaard, we read MSP as providing actors with dispositional power to act in concert, thus entailing a move from the risks of ‘resource rush’ to structuring, which facilitates predictability and promotes agency. However, MSP’ing may also restrict agency when (1) powerful actors misuse opportunities for concerted action to pursue sectoral goals; (2) planning fantasies and the planner’s cognitive limitation sustain dominative power-relations; and (3) in setting the boundaries of MSP, bias is mobilized in favor of vested interests. We thus deploy Foucault’s notion of freedom, to analyze the relationship between ‘steering’ and resistance subjectivities, and his concept of parrhesias to consider to what extent, an ethico-political planner may contribute towards more equitable processes and outcomes. We conclude that besides the planner, the state as the ultimate authority in MSP must intervene substantively to minimize differentials in the distribution of actors’social resources.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2019
Keywords
Development studies, Marine spatial planning; agency; empowerment; domination; Foucault and Haugaard
National Category
Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Environmental Studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-38064 (URN)10.1080/1523908X.2019.1673155 (DOI)000489951000001 ()2-s2.0-85073939705 (Scopus ID)
Funder
BONUS - Science for a better future of the Baltic Sea region, 185The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 2186/3.1.1/2014
Note

Som manuskript i avhandling. As manuscript in dissertation.

Available from: 2019-04-25 Created: 2019-04-25 Last updated: 2020-04-01Bibliographically approved

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Tafon, Ralph Voma

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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • harvard-anglia-ruskin-university
  • apa-old-doi-prefix.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-harvard.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-oxford.csl
  • Other style
More styles
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  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf