Discourse, agency, and social license to operate in New Zealand

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dc.citation.issue1
dc.citation.volume25
dc.contributor.authorNewton M
dc.contributor.authorFarrelly T
dc.contributor.authorSinner J
dc.date.available2020-03
dc.date.issued2020-01-17
dc.description.abstractThe construction of discourse through choice of wording and sentence structure can affect power relations between people and groups. Social license to operate (SLO), broadly defined as the public’s acceptance or approval of a company and its operations, is an emergent concept in New Zealand’s marine economy. The way the public discourse around SLO is constructed and communicated can empower some at the expense of others, whether deliberately or inadvertently. This study employed critical discourse analysis to investigate how SLO is used in public documents relating to commercial activities in New Zealand’s marine environment between 1996 and 2017. Specifically, the study explores the implied power relations between government, industry, New Zealand’s Indigenous tribes (hereafter, iwi), communities, and other stakeholders. We find that industry and central government dominate SLO-related public discourse, and they frequently vest SLO agency with industry rather than community groups, iwi, or the wider public. Indeed, iwi are largely absent from the SLO discourse in public documents. Definitions of SLO vary extensively across the documents and are largely captured by industry and central government. We conclude that New Zealand’s marine SLO public discourse empowers industry at the expense of communities and the public, contrary to the notional intent of the concept.
dc.description.publication-statusPublished
dc.identifierhttp://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000524149700006&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=c5bb3b2499afac691c2e3c1a83ef6fef
dc.identifierARTN 2
dc.identifier.citationECOLOGY AND SOCIETY, 2020, 25 (1)
dc.identifier.doi10.5751/ES-11304-250102
dc.identifier.elements-id429172
dc.identifier.harvestedMassey_Dark
dc.identifier.issn1708-3087
dc.publisherThe Resilience Alliance
dc.relation.isPartOfECOLOGY AND SOCIETY
dc.relation.urihttps://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol25/iss1/art2/
dc.rightsCopyright © 2020 by the author(s). Published here under license by The Resilience Alliance. This article is under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
dc.subjectaquaculture
dc.subjectblue economy
dc.subjectcorporate social responsibility
dc.subjectdeep sea mining
dc.subjectfisheries
dc.subjectoil and gas
dc.subjectpower
dc.subjectpublic documents
dc.titleDiscourse, agency, and social license to operate in New Zealand
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.notesNot known
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences/School of People, Enviroment and Planning
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