This articel is based on the presentation made at the RE-Mindings symposium 2012 with the aim to raise the understanding of the importance of the cumulative effects of industrial activities and military activities on water quality in Sápmi. The investigations which it is based upon were made in a supradisciplinary collaboration with local inhabitants in Udtja, Vidsel and Jokkmokk. ; Vetenskapsrådet 2012-6335 ; Vetenskapsrådet 2009-1736
Hydropower has commonly been promoted as an environmentally friendly and renewable energy resource. Despite this, the major negative social and ecological impacts on the environment and its local inhabitants have been well established for a long time, as well as the high risks for large-scale disasters caused by hydropower dam failures. Drawing on a qualitative study that focuses on the Lule River in Sweden, this article analyses the cultural politics of emotions with regard to dams, reservoirs, safety and human security. Annually between one and two major dam failures occur around the world, with major consequences for human and non-human lives, the environment and the economy, and the issue has been addressed in policy making and within the work of power companies since the 1970's. However, more people die due to accidents on dams and reservoirs than due to dam failures. In Sweden, the number of hydropower regulation related deaths within the demographically small municipality of Jokkmokk, where a major part of Sweden's hydropower is being produced, is on average 0,02 per cent per year, or 1-2 persons, which would correspond to 180-360 deaths in the Swedish capital Stockholm. Yet, there are no calls for inquiries, investigations and measurements to ensure public safety around dams in Sweden. Linking these two aspects on hydropower dams and safety through the concept of human security we identify a void of understanding and valuing the importance of humans' – operators - lived experiences and invested emotions in the work to avoid dam failures, accidents on the reservoirs and loss of lives. We address the fact that the operators live and are related to the inhabitants of the regulated Lule River and what role this may play in enhanced human security. We argue that technical reports and studies on dam safety are written in a way that invokes false emotions of control, safety and security for inhabitants as well as political decision makers. New technologies for camera surveillance and monitoring provide opportunities to assemble data on a dam and the water flowing through it (seepage), with the purpose to enhance safety. However, we suggest that these systems actually may produce false emotions of safety and security, reinforcing a paradigm of perceived control of nature's forces and thereby may contribute to decreased safety and human security. ; Dammed: Security, risk and resilience around the dams of sub-arctica
Analyzing the intra-actions between the actors involved, this paper presents results from interviews and participatory observations with local authorities, local inhabitants, power companies representatives as well as dam operators. We argue that the Swedish model for dam safety currently is suffering from a major deficiency as the expertise and understanding of the technical constructions remain among the dam owners and that the societal authority in charge of supervising the dam owners work have no capability of achieving the same level of understanding and thus to take informed and relevant decisions. Furthermore we argue that the lack of technical understanding of dams and hydropower outside of the dam sector has become a huge threat to dam safety as state representatives and political decision makers currently allow and even encourage mining exploitation both next to high risk classified hydropower dams and even within existing hydropower reservoirs. We argue that the actual challenge to safeguard an increased dam safety is by bridging the gap between the multitude of different actors– engineers/operators, users, political decision makers - in order to generate new understandings and new methodologies to deal with risk, safety and security. It is necessary to bridge the gaps between the sectors and actors involved, and that this should be done through investment in close collaboration between the dam sector and engineering research on the one hand and social sciences and humanities on the other – to ensure understandings of political decision making as well as of technical artifacts and water flows. The geographical focus is on two rivers – the Ume River and the Lule River in the north of Sweden. Both rivers are of major importance for national production of electricity, and the rivers are water suppliers for a large amount of inhabitants. ; DAMMED: Security, Risk and Resilience around the Dams of Sub-Arctica ; Rivers, resistance and resilience: Sustainable futures in Sápmi and in other indigenous peoples' territories FORMAS, 2013-2016, 6 MSEK. Project leader and only researcher: May-Britt Öhman, PhD. Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University
