Full metadata
Title
Examining Risk Frameworks in the Stibnite Gold Project: A Public Discourse Analysis of Four Key Actors
Description
Contemporary renewable energy transitions require the extraction of critical minerals necessary to produce new green technologies. The Stibnite Gold Project located in Valley County, Idaho, is one of many proposed mine sites to supply raw materials for renewable energy infrastructure. A variety of actors including the mine operator, Perpetua Resources, use varying approaches to risk to measure the impacts of potential mine operations. A formal permitting process facilitated by US regulatory bodies assess these risks and proposals for their mitigation. This study examines the permitting process for the proposed mine, the Stibnite Gold Project, in Idaho in order to better understand what risks are considered and how they are conceptualized. Specifically, it examines public discourse from the mine operator Perpetua Resources, key regulators, key NGOs, and the Nez Perce tribal community. A critical discourse analysis reveals the development of distinct risk, economic, restorative, and decision authority narratives among each actor. These narratives shape approaches to risk. However, they also reveal settler colonialism and other intersecting systems of oppression are reinstated and/or resisted in each actors approach to risk. Drawing on existing literature as well as new empirical data from the discourse analysis, this study shows limits to prevailing approaches to risk that need to be addressed so that future efforts to advance sustainability-driven renewable energy transitions do not impose unjust costs on Indigenous peoples.
Date Created
2023
Contributors
- Stempel, Khampha (Author)
- Calhoun, Craig (Thesis advisor)
- Carralero, Pamela (Committee member)
- Klinsky, Sonja (Committee member)
- Nelson, Melissa (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
Resource Type
Extent
69 pages
Language
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.187350
Level of coding
minimal
Cataloging Standards
Note
Partial requirement for: M.A., Arizona State University, 2023
Field of study: Sustainability
System Created
- 2023-06-06 07:22:15
System Modified
- 2023-06-06 07:22:19
- 1 year 3 months ago
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