LandUse seminar: "The Lågen-delta 2014-2025: The troublesome establishment of an "all things assembly" with Lars Risan
This LandUse seminar features anthropologist Lars Risan who will present his work on the Lågen-delta in Innlandet county, Norway.
Time and place: Apr. 21, 2026 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM, SAI (Blindern, Eilert Sundts hus, ninth floor, room 929)
Abstract
A new motorway through the Lågen Delta, west of Lillehammer, is now being built, after a 10-year planning process. There is hardly any issue of land use politics that shapes the landscape of a municipality more than building a four-lane motorway right through it. A great many people and animals are affected, and the intervention could change large parts of the local environment in the foreseeable future.
In the planning process prior to the construction of the new motorway through the Lågen Delta, not all stakeholders wanted to give all other stakeholders and life forms an equal right to be heard. In this seminar, we will nevertheless explore the troubled establishment of a kind of "Parliament of All Things" for birds, people and fish in and around the delta.
In a Parliament of All Things, someone must speak on behalf of others. Someone's interests must be mediated, conveyed, communicated by others than themselves. This is true both when the stakeholders are birds, fish and people.
We will follow the mediations, transitions and representations of birds, fish and people both locally, in Lillehammer municipality, and nationally. We will see that the debate took unexpected turns when "untouched nature" was pitted against the welfare of birds and fish in the delta.
Understanding the planning process prior to the construction of a new highway gives us insight into how one can think about giving non-human life legal rights as "actors" in a Norwegian context.
The seminar will be both in-person and online on Zoom. Zoom-link
Language
This seminar will be held in Norwegian