Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict
Modern science is well established as the institution through which knowledge is legitimated, facts are produced, and credibility is assigned. Operating within the prevailing capitalist socio-political order, science is also controlled by the wealthy elite, whose resources are required for its produ...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
2018
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/7353 https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12289/7353 |
id |
ftqueenmu:oai:eresearch.qmu.ac.uk:20.500.12289/7353 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftqueenmu:oai:eresearch.qmu.ac.uk:20.500.12289/7353 2023-05-15T15:15:30+02:00 Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict Moyer, Jessica 2018-07-27T15:40:13Z 197 application/pdf https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/7353 https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12289/7353 unknown Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh ET1813 https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/7353 Alaska Conflict Discourse Environment Energy Expertise Hegemony Thesis Doctoral PhD Doctor of Philosophy 2018 ftqueenmu https://doi.org/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://doi.org/20.500.12289/7353 2022-05-15T05:18:34Z Modern science is well established as the institution through which knowledge is legitimated, facts are produced, and credibility is assigned. Operating within the prevailing capitalist socio-political order, science is also controlled by the wealthy elite, whose resources are required for its production, evaluation, and implementation. Beyond disproportionately serving powerful interests, however, science enables the most privileged groups within society to embolden certain understandings of the world and marginalize others, to shape public perceptions, behaviors, and norms, and thus to reinforce the existing social systems and institutions that support their own dominance. Building on critical scholarship that addresses inequality by problematizing the structures and practices that reproduce power, this thesis examines the prominent and politically opposed positions of the oil industry and mainstream environmentalists in the U.S. policy debate over whether to permit petroleum development in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Specifically, through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I explore how these two 'mid-stream' scientific actors, which have effectively appropriated the wider 'for' and 'against' drilling campaigns respectively, each engage with the generation as well as dissemination of technical knowledge in order to substantiate their arguments and enhance the authority of their claims. The analysis presented here demonstrates that the hegemonic framing of the ANWR conflict, which I describe in terms of Materialism as Morality, reifies scientific expertise whilst burying values beneath assumptions of objectivity and neutrality. It also allows incongruent truth claims to eclipse the many legitimate but competing perspectives, priorities, investments, ideologies, risks, and ethical dilemmas that lie at the heart of the ANWR drilling debate. Moreover, this framing is implicit in the perpetuation of systemic social and environmental injustice. Ultimately, my research argues for a ... Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis Arctic Alaska Queen Margaret University Edinburgh: eResearch Arctic |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Queen Margaret University Edinburgh: eResearch |
op_collection_id |
ftqueenmu |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Alaska Conflict Discourse Environment Energy Expertise Hegemony |
spellingShingle |
Alaska Conflict Discourse Environment Energy Expertise Hegemony Moyer, Jessica Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict |
topic_facet |
Alaska Conflict Discourse Environment Energy Expertise Hegemony |
description |
Modern science is well established as the institution through which knowledge is legitimated, facts are produced, and credibility is assigned. Operating within the prevailing capitalist socio-political order, science is also controlled by the wealthy elite, whose resources are required for its production, evaluation, and implementation. Beyond disproportionately serving powerful interests, however, science enables the most privileged groups within society to embolden certain understandings of the world and marginalize others, to shape public perceptions, behaviors, and norms, and thus to reinforce the existing social systems and institutions that support their own dominance. Building on critical scholarship that addresses inequality by problematizing the structures and practices that reproduce power, this thesis examines the prominent and politically opposed positions of the oil industry and mainstream environmentalists in the U.S. policy debate over whether to permit petroleum development in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Specifically, through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I explore how these two 'mid-stream' scientific actors, which have effectively appropriated the wider 'for' and 'against' drilling campaigns respectively, each engage with the generation as well as dissemination of technical knowledge in order to substantiate their arguments and enhance the authority of their claims. The analysis presented here demonstrates that the hegemonic framing of the ANWR conflict, which I describe in terms of Materialism as Morality, reifies scientific expertise whilst burying values beneath assumptions of objectivity and neutrality. It also allows incongruent truth claims to eclipse the many legitimate but competing perspectives, priorities, investments, ideologies, risks, and ethical dilemmas that lie at the heart of the ANWR drilling debate. Moreover, this framing is implicit in the perpetuation of systemic social and environmental injustice. Ultimately, my research argues for a ... |
format |
Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
author |
Moyer, Jessica |
author_facet |
Moyer, Jessica |
author_sort |
Moyer, Jessica |
title |
Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict |
title_short |
Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict |
title_full |
Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict |
title_fullStr |
Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict |
title_full_unstemmed |
Materialism as Morality in the ANWR Oil Drilling Debate: A Critical Investigation into the Reification of Science, the Marginalization of Values, and the Power of Discourse within Environmental Conflict |
title_sort |
materialism as morality in the anwr oil drilling debate: a critical investigation into the reification of science, the marginalization of values, and the power of discourse within environmental conflict |
publisher |
Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/7353 https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12289/7353 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Alaska |
op_relation |
ET1813 https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/7353 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/20.500.12289/7353/7353.pdf https://doi.org/20.500.12289/7353 |
_version_ |
1766345872004612096 |