ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the issue of siting conflicts related to environmentally harmful activities. The analysis uses a theoretical perspective emphasizing the social origin of cognition and the significance of the institutional setting for how people perceive, experience and create knowledge of certain phenomena. The chapter focuses on how we can understand and explain the deadlocks that arise in many siting conflicts. The analysis is based on a case study of a conflict over a plan to carry out deep disposal of mercury in a community in Sweden. Both parties involved in the conflict advocate the idea of reasoning things through, and they are both frustrated by the failure to do so in this case. The analysis reveals an uncompromising conflict between two institutions based on incompatible core ideas of safety versus risk connected to epistemological concerns – that is, whether or not it is possible to predict the long-term safety of the project. The case study concludes that the institutional influence is a contributing factor in understanding the impasse of a conflict.
