This thesis examines the current state of crude oil extraction and production in the Greater Burgan oilfield, Kuwait's largest and oldest oilfield. This thesis is based on interviews with oilfield workers, analyses of official documents from the Kuwaiti government and the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), and my own experience as an oilfield worker in Kuwait. through this, I trace the changing social and environmental relationships in the Burgan oilfield. Through Actor-Network-Theory and Assemblage Theory, I explore the different actors and the power dynamics negotiated between actants in the oil industry. Specifically, I am interested in how economic and social relationships are assembled in oil economies, how oil dependency impacts society, and how we can prepare for a future without oil. Burgan reservoirs have shifted from natural production to artificial lift, indicating that Burgan has reached its oil production peak. This plateau in oil production has incited KOC to further invest in technology, to compensate for the anticipation in oil production shortfalls. Furthermore, I examine how 'cultures' are created around oil in the oilfields. This leads me to ask how labour security, safety, and dependencies are negotiated in relation to global processes. I conclude that the declining profitability of the oil market is compensated for by lower salaries, the deterioration of working conditions and worker rights. Finally, I explore the long-term health and environmental effects, and how their mitigation is negotiated in the oilfields. The study highlights the practice of gas flaring as leading to carbon emissions in extraction of oil and shows that the official data on flaring is underrepresented. In addition, a lack of awareness and mitigation around Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) is highlighted and discussed. Finally, the argument is made that the traditional oil industry in Kuwait is disassembling, KOC now invests in oil markets else-where to compensate for losses. As shown here, oilfield workers are the first point of contact in this complex situation, so they should be considered in the transition process.

This thesis examines the conservation narratives of Madagascar the ambiguity of forest cover and deforestation estimates, and the difficulty in deconstructing the narratives linked to the idea of a once fully forested island. In particular, shifts in the conservation debate are related to the discursive power of a large-scale international NGO, the WWF. A diachronic perspective is provided both through a discussion of earlier research and discourse analyses of selected texts, published by WWF Madagascar between 1991–2020. The theory and method are developed from Dryzek’s environmental discourse analysis with some modifications. The categories used in the conservation discourse analysis relate to baselines and intertextuality; underlying narratives such as problem representations and metaphors; the different values given to biodiversity; and possible hegemonic discourses within the conservation debate surrounding Madagascar. The discussion on WWF Madagascar also connects with the progression of environmental movements and conservationism, as reflected through shifting conservation priorities in both international contexts and local community conservation efforts. The conclusion demonstrates that shifts in WWF Madagascar’s conservation work reflect global perceptions and assumptions of what has protection value, and vice versa. It is concluded that the role of NGOs in creating and disseminating environmental narratives affects the conservation discourse on all levels and inmultiple contexts – such as media, academia, communities, and politics. In this discussion, the diachronic perspective on intertextuality presented here, especially regarding baselines and estimates of forest cover, illustrates how environmental history is key to conservation, and how at the same time NGOs can play a role as intermediaries in reshaping environmental narratives. / Denna avhandling undersöker Madagaskars bevarandeberättelser, oklarheten i uppskattningar av skogstäcke och avskogning samt svårigheten i att dekonstruera berättelser kopplade till idén om en tidigare helt skogbevuxen ö. Framför allt är förändringar i bevarandedebatten relaterade till det diskursiva inflytandet hos en storskalig internationell icke-statlig organisation, WWF (Världsnaturfonden). Ett diakront perspektiv ges både genom en diskussion av tidigare forskning och diskursanalyser av utvalda texter, publicerade av WWF Madagaskar mellan 1991–2020. Teorin och metoden är utvecklad med några modifieringar av Dryzeks miljödiskursanalys. De kategorier som används i diskursanalysen relaterar till skogsmätning och intertextualitet; underliggande berättelser såsom problemrepresentationer och metaforer; de olika värden som ges till biologisk mångfald; och eventuella hegemoniska diskurser inom bevarandedebatten kring Madagaskar. Diskussionen om WWF Madagaskar hänger också ihop med miljörörelsens och naturvårdens utveckling, sett genom växlande bevarandeprioriteringar i både internationella sammanhang och lokalsamhällets bevarandeinsatser. Slutsatsen visar att förändringar i WWF Madagaskars bevarandearbete återspeglar globala uppfattningar och antaganden om vad som har skyddsvärde och vice versa. Slutsatsen som dras är att de icke-statliga organisationernas roll i att skapa och sprida miljöberättelser påverkar bevarandediskursen på alla nivåer och i flera sammanhang – såsom media, akademi, samhällen och politik. Särskilt gällande uppskattningar av skogstäcke belyser denna diskussion det diakrona perspektivet på intertextualitet som presenteras här, hur miljöhistoria är nyckeln till bevarande, och samtidigt hur icke-statliga organisationer kanagera som förmedlare i omformningen av miljöberättelser.

This project argues that by examining how non-indigenous individuals such as American scientists and Euro-American explorers thought and formulated ideas about indigenous mounds proves that their construction of racial identities is inextricable from their understanding of the landscape. The mounds proved to be “mysterious” man-made features to non-indigenous people who interacted with these places in the decades and centuries after they were constructed. The mystery behind the mounds stemmed from a general lack of written record about the mounds, giving non-indigenous individuals a “free hand” to offer theories about their original purpose. Each chapter of this project examines a window in time, beginning with early European exploration and continuing through the twentyirst century, which reveals the changing role the mounds played in understanding North America’s indigenous past. This project builds upon theories of landscape history and intellectual environmental history, demonstrating that the mounds challenge preconceived notions about regional definitions and the Euro-centric divide between what is labeled North American “pre-history” and “history.” For example, mounds exist in the American South, but they also exist in places such as Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Oklahoma. Additionally, the presence of large American Indian urban centers built around mound structures that rivaled European cities at the time, challenging Euro-centric definitions about North American “pre-history.” Although this project is not an indigenous history, it is important to recognize the significance of mound structures for American Indian people overtime. By unpacking some of the history of important sites such as the Nanih Waiya mound near Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the Kituwah mound near Bryson City, North Carolina, this project acknowledges a long cultural connection to specific mound sites for some modern American Indian people. The fact that in 1996 the Eastern Band of Cherokee purchased the Kituwah mound, and in 2008 the state of Mississippi gave Nanih Waiya to the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, dramatically alters the end of this story. Thus by tracing this story through the twentyirst century, this demonstrates the complexity of repatriation and contemporary issues of “who speaks for the tribe” remains, offering a different direction in which the story of American Indians is told.

At the time of its construction (1971-1985), the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway was a highly scrutinized public works project, but the years after its construction have remained largely unexplored. Research in the John C. Stennis Collection, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Development Authority archives, and local newspapers, revealed that despite developers’ promise the waterway’s economic impact failed to live up to expectations, while its environmental influence more than exceeded them. Though rural southerners failed to benefit economically from the waterway, they embraced the environmental changes forced upon the project by the National Environmental Policy Act. Built as a promise of economic development, the Tenn-Tom offers a model of how economics and environmental forces intersected within the rural South. The waterway’s history as an economic and environmental force demands a reconsideration of the role of public works projects in southern environmental history.

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