The Temporal-Political Dimensions of Green Colonialism through Wind Power Development at Fosen, Norway

Abstract The 2021 Fosen verdict challenged Norway’s human rights reputation, stating that wind power development in Indigenous South Saami reindeer herding territories violated the Saami herders’ human rights. Previous research has described the development as a form of green colonialism. This article expands our comprehension of some central dynamics of green colonialism in contemporary Norway by exploring the temporal-political dimensions of wind power development. This qualitative study collected data from conversations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis and applied a decolonial analytical approach. The results showed that the Norwegian government employed different temporal-political strategies before and after the verdict. Initially, urgency was used to justify why the Saami herders had to be forced to give up land for the ‘greater good of society.’ After the verdict stated that Indigenous rights had been violated, the government spent over two years finding ‘good solutions,’ showing how time use changed from urgency to delay. The article’s findings indicate that the Norwegian state’s use of time may be an intrinsic part of how green colonialism plays out in the research context and further suggest that time can be a political tool in asymmetrical colonial relations by connecting the strategies to time ontologies and power.