Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Conceptions of Energy in Central Alaskan Fossil and Renewable Fuel Development

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed dissertation project is will support the research of University of Wisconsin Madison graduate student Chelsea Chapman to investigate cultural conceptions of energy in order to understand how such conceptions inform local political discourse and conflict over fossil and renewable energy development. The researcher will apply ethnographic methods to the study of energy in Central Alaska where fossil and renewable resource production takes place in a culturally, historically, and environmentally complex social setting. Data will be collected through interviews, participant observation, and documentation of public commentary from regional energy industry workers, environmental organizers, Alaska Native community members, and renewable energy advocates. These folk conceptualizations of energy, energy production and use will be documented using categories based on occupational history and work experience, ethnicity and Alaska Native citizenship, and rural and urban residency. In addition, the project will focus on whether such conceptions of energy transcend these social categories of ethnicity, occupation, and residence as they become institutionalized as fields of distinct knowledge.