ABSTRACT

To understand anti-democratic barriers to accomplishing energy democracy, I examine how and why a centralised energy system can maintain itself based on an ethnographic analysis of the local protest of the Miryang community against the Korea Electric Power Corporation’s construction of a 765,000-volt transmission line. In doing so, I incorporate the element of authoritarian communication into the framework of peripheralization – a socio-political reproduction of social, spatial, and environmental inequality caused by siting environmentally hazardous facilities in peripheral communities and reinforcing their powerlessness – to emphasize the aggressive role of government and industry actors. Composed of unidirectional projection, partial absorption, and forceful suppression, authoritarian communication makes the sacrifices of peripheral communities enduring, and consequently enables an undemocratic energy arrangement to be resilient and perpetual. To overcome this mechanism, I highlight the active roles of citizens to contest authoritarian communication and socio-environmental inequalities as a precondition to building a sustainable energy democracy.

摘要

为了理解实现能源民主的反民主障碍，我基于对密阳社区当地抗议韩国电力公司建设 765,000 伏输电线路的人种学分析，研究了集中式能源系统如何以及为何能够自我维持. 在这样做的过程中，我将威权传播的元素纳入了边缘化的框架——一种社会、空间和环境不平等的社会政治再生产，这是由于在边缘社区设置对环境有害的设施并加强他们的无能为力而造成的——强调政府和行业参与者。由单向投射、部分吸收、强力压制组成，威权交流使外围社区的牺牲持久，从而使不民主的能源安排具有弹性和永久。为了克服这种机制，我强调公民在对抗威权沟通和社会环境不平等方面的积极作用，这是建立可持续能源民主的先决条件。