Abstract:

Peak oil and global warming have both been vilified and then vindicated. When the small community of Haines, Alaska, dependent for food, fuel and social services on the increasingly less viable fossil fuel economy, began noticing deficits in early 2007, its Borough Assembly engaged the volunteer Haines Energy Task Force to research and make recommendations on alternative energy sources for heating and transportation, local food production and harvesting of subsistence resources, social services and economic change. As a long-term resident and property owner, I found myself in a zone of identification (Burke 1950) as part of a nexus of practice (NOP) of citizens thinking about the future of reduced and alternative energy consumption and taking action toward bringing about the envisioned future. As part of this NOP, my analysis constituted social action by transforming the NOP in engaging the NOP, the opening move in a nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2004: 9). This paper is an account of the ways and extent to which the task force was able to bring about change in the community. It is not a nexus analysis as such but a summary report.

Author: Suzie Wong Scollon