My research focus on conflicts and social sustainability issues in extractive industry areas.

My research interests build on the results from my dissertation project (Persson, 2020), an autoethnographic study of a Canadian oil company and their operations and implementation of sustainability standards in an oilfield in Albania. In that study, I applied Political Discourse Theory and showed that corporate sustainability programs were used as a power tool to maintain corporate control rather than as support to community interests. This raised questions regarding how ‘sustainability’ is verbalised and materialised in other extractive industry areas and regarding the role of civil society as a counter-hegemonic force to corporate sustainability agendas in such contexts.

Before entering academia I worked with Stakeholder Engagement and Social Impact Assessments in the hydropower and oil industries in Albania.

Dissertation:

Persson, S (2020). Corporate Hegemony through Sustainability - A Study of Sustainability Standards and CSR Practices as Tools to Demobilise Community Resistance in the Albanian Oil Industry. https://bibl.sh.se/skriftserier/hogskolans_skriftserier/Corporate_Hegemony_through_Sustainability/diva2_1485334.aspx External link, opens in new window.