Master Thesis A Romantic World Perspective How Romanticism Influences the Social Acceptance of Wind Power Master Program in Sustainable Management Department of Business Studies Uppsala University, Campus Gotland Date of Submission: 2020-06-03 Lisa Dufner Lize Klute Supervisor: Fredrik Sjöstrand ABSTRACT This study aims to expand and enrich the research on the social gap regarding wind power development. We look into reasons for the malaise that people experience when confronted with wind power projects and propose that aspects of the Romantic era still prevail in and influence how humans relate to the world today. We show that the human relation to nature and technology is influenced by Romanticism providing one additional explanation for the social acceptance of wind power that has not yet been addressed in research. This is researched through a qualitative, exploratory multiple-case design that focuses on exploring personal stories and emotions about people’s relation to nature, technology and wind power. This resulted in the discovery of several paradoxes in people’s thinking, a nature paradox and a technology paradox which meet in the wind power debate. Our findings indicate that the malaise around wind power can be further understood by these paradoxes. Ultimately, people’s final decision on accepting wind power comes down to Romantic thinking versus Enlightenment thinking, in which the latter dominates. Key Words: Wind Power, Romanticism, Relation to Nature, Relation to Technology, Social Acceptance, Social Gap. 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project is the result of a year in which our understanding of sustainability issues has been enhanced and our minds have been opened to critical and creative ways of thinking. We would like to say thank you to everyone who contributed to the finalization of this work, as it would not have been possible without them. First of all, thank you to our classmates for the discussions and critical feedback in the seminars for this thesis and the entire program. Second of all, thank you to our teachers and especially our supervisor Fredrik Sjöstrand (PhD) who showed us the right track and assured us that we are still on it. Third of all, thank you to our interviewees who gave us trust and took time to talk to us in the midst of the Corona crisis. Lastly, thank you to our friends and family who supported us from distance and kept our spirits high when the wind was blowing hard and the clouds were hanging low over Visby. Thank you! Lisa & Lize 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 5 1.1. Being Out of Tune ..................................................................................................... 5 1.2. Scientific Relevance................................................................................................... 6 1.3. Problem Formulation and Research Question ........................................................... 7 1.4. Structure ..................................................................................................................... 8 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................................... 9 2.1. Social Acceptance of Wind Power ............................................................................ 9 2.2. Established Factors of Social Acceptance ............................................................... 10 2.2.1. Contextual Factors ............................................................................................... 10 2.2.2. Personal and Psychological Factors of Social Acceptance .................................. 12 2.3. Wind Power - Nature and Technology Meeting Place ............................................ 14 2.4. Relation to Nature .................................................................................................... 15 2.5. Relation to Technology ............................................................................................ 17 2.6. Theoretical Framework: Romanticism .................................................................... 19 3. Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 27 3.1. Research Strategy..................................................................................................... 27 3.2. Research Design and Case Selection ....................................................................... 27 3.3. Research Methods and Data Collection ................................................................... 31 3.4. Data Analysis ........................................................................................................... 33 3.5. Data Quality ............................................................................................................. 33 4. The Tale of Our Empirics ................................................................................................. 35 4.1. Places & Stories ....................................................................................................... 35 4.2. Romantic Themes in Interviews .............................................................................. 36 4.2.1. Background of Romanticism ............................................................................... 36 4.2.2. Technology .......................................................................................................... 42 4.2.3. Far Away & Long Ago ........................................................................................ 45 4.2.4. Emotional, Subjective Individual......................................................................... 49 4.3. Wind Power Opinions .............................................................................................. 51 5. Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 56 5.1. Nature Paradox......................................................................................................... 56 5.2. Technology Paradox ................................................................................................ 57 5.3. Explaining the Wind Power Malaise ....................................................................... 59 3 6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 63 6.1. Future Research and Limitations ............................................................................. 64 6.2. Personal Reflection .................................................................................................. 65 Reference List .......................................................................................................................... 67 Appendix .................................................................................................................................. 72 Appendix A: Interview Protocols ......................................................................................... 72 Appendix B: Coding Frame ................................................................................................. 79 Appendix C: Description of Interviewees ............................................................................ 81 Appendix D: Selection of Quotes ........................................................................................ 88 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: The triangle of social acceptance. 10 Figure 2: Established factors of Social Acceptance of wind power. 14 Figure 3: The Oxbow, by Thomas Cole, 1836. 22 Figure 4: Conceptualization of Romanticism. 26 Figure 5: Map of the two case locations, Kinderdijk and Eisenbach, Schwarzwald. 28 Figure 6: Kinderdijk - View from the mill of a miller we interviewed. 29 Figure 7: Typical landscape Schwarzwald. 30 Figure 8: Visualization of the proposed wind turbines in Eisenbach. 31 Figure 9: Established factors of Social Acceptance of wind power & factors in empirics. 53 Figure 10: Conflict between Topophilia, Technophobia and Technophilia. 61 4 1. Introduction The World Is Too Much With Us This sonnet by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth from 1807 is about the loss of nature that humanity both causes and experiences. People are described as being mainly concerned with the material and financial world of consumerism and thus blind to the beauty of nature. While nature has a constant rhythm, humanity is “out of tune” (p. 122) and disconnected from it. 1.1. Being Out of Tune Living in the 21st century, in times of artificial intelligence, digitalization and exploitation of natural resources, but also of Fridays for Future, Greta Thunberg and the European Union’s European Green New Deal, it seems as if people are more disconnected from nature as ever, while simultaneously being perfectly aware of this disconnection. Wordsworth’s writings from the beginning of the 19th century about the loss of nature that humanity is causing are just as, or even more relevant now as they were back then. Humanity seems to be very aware of the devastating effects we have on the Earth and its climate (European Commission, 2019). Renewable energy, especially wind power, is one attempt to forgo anthropogenic climate change and achieve the global CO2 emission goals of the Paris Climate Agreement (Wind Europe, n.d.). National governments and transnational