Unpacking the discursive assemblages of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism: Articulations of space, place and time in the documentary film Gállok

Abstract

This article analyses, through a case study approach, the environmental documentary film Gállok, which narrates the struggles over the proposal to operate an iron ore mine in Gállok (Sámi) or Kallak (Swedish), in Northern Sweden. The analysis is transdisciplinary, anchored in the environmental studies work on anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, combined with discourse theory, geography and the scholarly work on space, place and time. These different disciplines and fields are activated to examine how space, place and time become articulated in the discursive assemblages of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism that feed the discursive – material struggles around the operation of the Gállok mine. As the analysis shows, the anthropocentric view favours an instrumentalist and geo-reductionist approach to space and the use of land that promotes presentism, space–place and space–time dualism. Ecocentrism, on the other hand, articulates holism and geo-pluralism, supporting ideas of deep time, space–place and space–time.