Big Water Tales and Small Town Stories: Power and Identity Narratives in Protracted Environmental Disputes

Abstract:     
We draw on narratives of stakeholders in two different environmental disputes for our analysis. Our analysis of these tales explores the interplay between power and identity construction in these two underorganized interorganizational domains. There are four primary contributions of this paper. First, we extend extant work on underorganized interorganizational domains to the realm of protracted environmental conflicts. Second, using disputants' own narratives, we demonstrate how groups of disputants constructed and revealed their collective identities in the disputes. Third, we show how power dimensions and identity construction are interwoven in underorganized interorganizational domains and, in particular, determine if identities are constructed differently in different kinds of domains. Fourth, we show that through the process of constructing their identities, domain protagonists also construct the domains themselves and these constructions can either exacerbate or ameliorate the conflicts.

Keywords: environmental disputes, narrative analysis, discourse, power, identity, underorganized, interorganizational domains

Working Paper Series