Articulation of the Value of Natural Resources and Landscapes in the Discursive Practices of Kuzbass
Research Article
How to Cite
Piskunova A.E. (2025) Articulation of the Value of Natural Resources and Landscapes in the Discursive Practices of Kuzbass. Zhurnal sotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii (The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology), 28(1): 133–159 (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.31119/jssa.2025.28.1.6 EDN: BZWBBE
Abstract
The article is devoted to the discourse on natural resources and landscapes of Kuzbass as a way to establish their value. Such discursive work, as the author shows, influences the development of nature. Resource use is necessarily related to the questions of what exactly matters in the environment and how it should be evaluated. Appealing to the theory, the author demonstrates that natural resources and landscapes do not have universal value, but acquire it in the processes of competition and struggle of values. Arguments are given in favor of understanding natural objects within the implementation of discursive practices, the scope of which extends both to the level of language and to the level of action in a specific socio-material space. Based on the analysis of the materials of the Kuzbass public discourse, four discursive fields related to four types of natural resources of the region are identified. First, coal mining, which is gaining a dominant symbolic status. Coal metonymically represents the region and is valued for economic development and well-being. In this regard, the Kuzbass landscape is discursively subordinated to the value of a resource, for which the lands are managed as a «resource location» devoid of local features. Secondly, gold mining, which is present on the periphery of the region's public discourse. It is characterized by less consistency and fixed values. Value contradictions are associated with the definition of the impact on river landscapes, which gain different material capabilities and properties in the discursive practices of gold mining companies, government and the active public. Thirdly, practices of forest management that embody the values of sustainable and rational nature development. The discursive practice of regional government enacts the forest as a potential commodity (wood), discarding its significant ecosystem functions. Fourth, the tourism potential of the territory, which relates to both natural and industrial landscapes. The article concludes that in the articulation of discourses by various actors, the same natural objects (subsoil, forests, reservoirs, etc.) acquire different value, semantic and material existence.
Keywords:
natural resources, coal mining, gold mining, forest management, tourism, landscape, values, Kuzbass, resource region
References
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Davidov V. (2014) Land, Copper, Flora: Dominant Materialities and the Making of Ecuadorian Resource Environments. Anthropological Quarterly, 87(1): 31–58.
Escobar A. (1999) After Nature: Steps to an Antiessentialist Political Ecology. Current Anthropology, 40(1): 1–30.
Ey M., Sherval M. (2016) Exploring the minescape: engaging with the complexity of the extractive sector. Area, 48(2): 176–182.
Ferry E.E., Nash J. (2005) Not Ours Alone: Patrimony, Value, and Collectivity in Contemporary Mexico Columbia. New York: University Press.
Franquesa J. (2019) Resources: Nature, Value and Time. In: Carrier J. (ed.) A Research Agenda for Economic Anthropology. Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar: 74–89.
Heinich N. (2020) A Pragmatic Redefinition of Value(s): Toward a General Model of Valuation. Theory, Culture & Society, 37(4): 75–94.
Labrador J.G., José O. (2020) Two Ontologies of Territory and a Legal Claim in the Ecuadorian Upper Amazon. Journal of Political Ecology, 27(1): 496–516.
Li F., Velásquez T.A. (2022) Water and conflict. In: D’Angelo L., Pijpers R.J. (eds.) The Anthropology of Resource Extraction. London: Routledge: 203–220.
Li T.M. (2014) What is land? Assembling a resource for global investment. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39(4): 589–602.
Mateer J., Springer S., Locret-Collet M. (2022) Introduction — The political ecology of resource and energy management beyond the state. In: Mateer J., Springer S., Locret-Collet M. (eds.) Energies beyond the state: anarchist political ecology and the liberation of nature. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield: 1–14.
McAuliffe C., Rogers D. (2019) The politics of value in urban development: Valuing conflict in agonistic pluralism. Planning Theory, 18(3): 300–318.
Neumann R.P. (2011) Political ecology III: Theorizing landscape. Progress in Human Geography, 35(6): 843–850.
Nuttall M. (2022) Environmental change. In: D’Angelo L., Pijpers R.J. (eds.) The Anthropology of Resource Extraction. London: Routledge: 59–76.
Peša I., Ross C. (2021) Extractive industries and the environment: Production, pollution, and protest in global history. The Extractive Industries and Society, 8(4): 100933. DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2021.100933.
Peterson A. (1999) Environmental Ethics and the Social Construction of Nature. Environmental Ethics, 21(4): 339–357.
Reinecke J. (2012) The Politics of Value: The work of value entrepreneurs in shaping categories. Academy of Management Proceedings, 1: 1–1. https//doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2012.320.
Schöneich S. (2023) Living on a Time Bomb: Local Negotiations of Oil Extraction in a Mexican Community. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Steinert S. (2023) Sociology and Value. In: Interdisciplinary Value Theory. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan: 33–50.
Kozhemyakin E.A. (2006) Discourse analysis in modern social and humanitarian knowledge. Chelovek. Soobshchestvo. Upravlenie [Human being. Community. Management], 3: 25–39 (in Russian).
Колбовский Е.Ю. (2018) Культурный ландшафт: в разнообразии значений не утерявший смысл. Наследие и современность, 1(4): 8–22.
Kolbovskiy E.Yu. (2018) Cultural landscape: in a variety of meanings has not lost its meaning. Nasledie i sovremennost' [Heritage and Modern Times], 1(4): 8–22 (in Russian).
Макнотен Ф., Урри Д. (1999) Социология природы. Филиппов А.Ф. (ред.) Теория общества: Фундаментальные проблемы. М.: КАНОН-пресс-Ц; Кучково поле: 261–291.
Macnaghten Ph., Urri J. (1999) Sociology of Nature. In: Filippov A.F. (ed.) Theory of Society: Fundamental problems. Moscow: KANON-press-C; Kuchkovo pole: 261–291 (in Russian).
Ромашко Т.В., Гурова О.Ю. (2022) Постструктуралистская теория дискурса и ее методы исследования социокультурной реальности. Социодинамика, 10: 46–59.
Romashko T.V., Gurova O.Yu. (2022) Poststructuralist Discourse Theory and its Methods of Analysis of Sociocultural Reality. Sociodinamika [Sociodynamics], 10: 46–59 (in Russian).
Троцук И.В. (2015) Анализ текстовых данных в социологии: основания систематизации концептуальных моделей, методологических принципов и методических решений : дис. ... д-ра социол. н. М.: ФГАОУ ВО «Российский университет дружбы народов»: 132–138.
Trotsuk I.V. (2015) Analysis of textual data in sociology: the basis for the systematization of conceptual models, methodological principles and methodological solutions: dis. ... doktora sociologicheskih nauk Moscow: FGAOU VO «Rossijskij universitet druzhby narodov»: 132–138 (in Russian).
Филлипс Н., Харди С. (2009) Что такое дискурс-анализ? Современный дискурс-анализ, 1(1): 49–64 [http://discourseanalysis.ru/ada1/st4.shtml] (дата обращения: 10.03.2024).
Phillips N., Hardi S. (2009) What is discourse analysis?] Sovremennyj diskurs-analiz [Modern discourse analysis], 1(1): 49–64 [http://discourseanalysis.ru/ada1/st4.shtml] (accessed: 10.04.2024) (in Russian).
Цзин А.Л. (2017) Гриб на краю света: о возможности жизни на руинах капитализма. М.: Ad Marginem Пресс.
Tsing A.L. (2017) The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Moscow: Ad Marginem Press (in Russian).
Brichet N., Hastrup F. (2018) Industrious Landscaping: The Making and Managing of Natural Resources at Søby Brown Coal Beds. Journal of Ethnobiology, 38(1): 8–23.
Bridge G. (2009) Material Worlds: Natural Resources, Resource Geography and the Material Economy. Geography compass, 3(3): 1217–1244.
Calvert K., Greer K., Maddison-MacFadyen M. (2019) Theorizing energy landscapes for energy transition management: Insights from a socioecological history of energy transitions in Bermuda. Geoforum, 102, 191–201.
Davidov V. (2014) Land, Copper, Flora: Dominant Materialities and the Making of Ecuadorian Resource Environments. Anthropological Quarterly, 87(1): 31–58.
Escobar A. (1999) After Nature: Steps to an Antiessentialist Political Ecology. Current Anthropology, 40(1): 1–30.
Ey M., Sherval M. (2016) Exploring the minescape: engaging with the complexity of the extractive sector. Area, 48(2): 176–182.
Ferry E.E., Nash J. (2005) Not Ours Alone: Patrimony, Value, and Collectivity in Contemporary Mexico Columbia. New York: University Press.
Franquesa J. (2019) Resources: Nature, Value and Time. In: Carrier J. (ed.) A Research Agenda for Economic Anthropology. Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar: 74–89.
Heinich N. (2020) A Pragmatic Redefinition of Value(s): Toward a General Model of Valuation. Theory, Culture & Society, 37(4): 75–94.
Labrador J.G., José O. (2020) Two Ontologies of Territory and a Legal Claim in the Ecuadorian Upper Amazon. Journal of Political Ecology, 27(1): 496–516.
Li F., Velásquez T.A. (2022) Water and conflict. In: D’Angelo L., Pijpers R.J. (eds.) The Anthropology of Resource Extraction. London: Routledge: 203–220.
Li T.M. (2014) What is land? Assembling a resource for global investment. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39(4): 589–602.
Mateer J., Springer S., Locret-Collet M. (2022) Introduction — The political ecology of resource and energy management beyond the state. In: Mateer J., Springer S., Locret-Collet M. (eds.) Energies beyond the state: anarchist political ecology and the liberation of nature. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield: 1–14.
McAuliffe C., Rogers D. (2019) The politics of value in urban development: Valuing conflict in agonistic pluralism. Planning Theory, 18(3): 300–318.
Neumann R.P. (2011) Political ecology III: Theorizing landscape. Progress in Human Geography, 35(6): 843–850.
Nuttall M. (2022) Environmental change. In: D’Angelo L., Pijpers R.J. (eds.) The Anthropology of Resource Extraction. London: Routledge: 59–76.
Peša I., Ross C. (2021) Extractive industries and the environment: Production, pollution, and protest in global history. The Extractive Industries and Society, 8(4): 100933. DOI: 10.1016/j.exis.2021.100933.
Peterson A. (1999) Environmental Ethics and the Social Construction of Nature. Environmental Ethics, 21(4): 339–357.
Reinecke J. (2012) The Politics of Value: The work of value entrepreneurs in shaping categories. Academy of Management Proceedings, 1: 1–1. https//doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2012.320.
Schöneich S. (2023) Living on a Time Bomb: Local Negotiations of Oil Extraction in a Mexican Community. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Steinert S. (2023) Sociology and Value. In: Interdisciplinary Value Theory. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan: 33–50.
Article
Received: 02.07.2024
Accepted: 25.03.2025
Citation Formats
Other cite formats:
ACM
[1]
Piskunova, A.E. 2025. Articulation of the Value of Natural Resources and Landscapes in the Discursive Practices of Kuzbass. Zhurnal sotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii (The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology). 28, 1 (Mar. 2025), 133–159. DOI:https://doi.org/10.31119/jssa.2025.28.1.6.
Section
Environmental Sociology
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