The Consequences of the Mining Industry for Disadvantaged Groups in Northern Finland and Northern Odisha

In the midst of the globally on-going resource commodity boom, also interpreted as the race for diminishing raw materials and energy resources, extracting non-renewable resources often competes with other uses of local... [ view full abstract ]

In the midst of the globally on-going resource commodity boom, also interpreted as the race for diminishing raw materials and energy resources, extracting non-renewable resources often competes with other uses of local environments and their resources. While environmental policy should balance the clash of interest between short-term resource mining and longer-term sustainability, underpricing of the environmental resources and their value for local communities is common. The particular expertise that social work has over ‘the social’ offers unique angles to understand how social and environmental sustainability, as well as social and environmental disadvantage are interlinked. Accordingly, social work has a role to play regarding the socio-environmental impacts of the natural resources management, among other things by working towards effective responses to the social and environmental justice issues that accompany natural resources management.

Based on my on-going post-doctoral research (2014-2017), the presentation focuses on the mining industry and its consequences for local people and the environment in two distinct contexts, Northern Finland and Northern Odisha (Eastern India). While the data acquiring through ethnographic participant observation and interviews is still going on during the spring 2015, I will utilize the until then accumulated data as a basis for a tentative analysis and discussion on whether and how the mining industry influences local social work needs and practices in these two regions. I will also shortly deal with the methodological challenges and possibilities of the approach. In the end, the aim is to produce knowledge about the actual and possible roles and responsibilities of social work in situations of conflict over the use of environmental resources. Moreover, the aim is to contribute to the effort to find working approaches to the social and environmental justice issues prevalent in mineral extraction, and generally in resource conflicts.