This research explores the discursive formations involved in two environmental conflicts during which organisations were not permitted to carry out their proposed extractive activities. The conflicts were based on the West Coast of the South Island in New Zealand. The first involved sustainable native logging and the second was over the siting and extension of a gold mine.
Extensive archival and media searches were carried out to generate data on the conflicts. Interviews were also conducted to investigate the community position in more depth. The discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (2001 [1985]) is drawn upon as a framework to make sense of the conflicts. This framework was particularly useful as it enabled a close and careful examination of the antagonisms and addressed some of the ideological and power concerns with stakeholder analysis. The analysis involved identifying nodal points, subjectivity, subject positions and floating signifiers, which enabled certain hegemonic constructions.
The two conflicts were considerably different. The hegemonic constructions were quite similar and the notion of �being green� emerged as an antagonism that was at the heart of the conflicts and a key to understanding why these business organisations were unsuccessful. That is, who or what is given meaning as �being green� negates and de-legitimates other activity that is not deemed to be green. In these conflicts business organisations extracting natural resources and subjects supporting these organisational activities could not be green - when being green was constituted in terms of the clean green discourse operating economically and socially within New Zealand (see Bell, 1996). Consequently, not being green was deemed to be outside of what we see as New Zealanders as being important and thus should not occur in this country.
This research has implications for business organisations in New Zealand dealing with greening issues, especially as external stakeholders can have considerable influence on organisational activities. Theoretically it argues for a discursive approach to organisational stakeholder analysis in order to address power and subjectivity and for the organisation and natural environment literature to recognise the possibility of multiple meanings of nature. In particular, this thesis contributes to current organisation studies literature by explicitly focusing on �nature� as a concept. It shows that the meaning attributed to nature is a political process which can have consequences for preventing or enabling significant business organisational activities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217831 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Walton, Sara, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Management |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Sara Walton |
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