This WP focuses on the case of Kvanefjeld Rare Earth-Uranium project, where even though the Greenlandic government imposed a zero-tolerance policy on nuclear mining, the Australian company Greenland Minerals Ltd. (GML) has attained a permission to extract both rare-earth metals and uranium by a narrow vote in the Greenland parliament in 2013. The prospect mine has divided both the community and the country on whether it will save or destroy local communities. The case is not resolved and the GML continues to push for attaining a license to realize the Kvanefjeld Rare Earth-Uranium project, while the Urani Naamik Society continues their struggle against it. WP3 will historiographically investigate expectations, opinions, and decision-making in relation to how the mine has been planned and will ethnographically follow local communities’ concerns and protests due to possible radioactive waste spill. First, the media coverage and public/policy debate around Kvanefjeld Rare Earth- Uranium project will be gathered and analyzed. Second, a round of interviews with public servants, Policy makers involved in environmental and energy issues from both Denmark and Greenland, and representatives of GML will be conducted. Third, we will conduct interviews (individual and focus group) with the local community of the nearby town of Narsaq that has protested for years and organized in the Urani Naamik Society (No to Uranium). WP3 will contribute with insights about potential discrepancies between energy transition initiatives, business interests, legitimate environmental policymaking and Indigenous traditional lives and justice making process in Greenland.
