Publication Date
8-2025
Date of Final Oral Examination (Defense)
7-30-2025
Type of Culminating Activity
Dissertation
Degree Title
Doctor of Philosophy in Public Policy and Administration
Department
Public Policy and Administration
Supervisory Committee Chair
Chris Birdsall, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Jared Talley, Ph.D.
Supervisory Committee Member
Christopher Courtheyn, Ph.D.
Abstract
This dissertation examines how community resistance to renewable energy infrastructure unfolds as a struggle over governance, legitimacy, and cultural meaning. Through a comparative, qualitative case study of the Kahuku Wind Resistance in Hawaiʻi and the Lava Ridge Wind Project in Idaho, the study investigates how marginalized communities mobilize discourse, memory, and social capital to challenge energy development that is framed as sustainable yet experienced as exclusionary or harmful.
Drawing on governmentality theory, environmentalities (sovereign, neoliberal, disciplinary, and biopolitical), cultural memory, discourse theory, social capital, and social construction, this research analyzes more than 190 documents, including social media posts, public comments, media coverage, institutional reports, and government filings. Using discourse and content analysis within NVivo, the study identifies how resistance actors construct counter-narratives that redefine sustainability, assert local epistemologies, and expose institutional misrecognition.
The findings show that resistance is not a rejection of climate action but a demand for procedural justice, cultural recognition, and epistemic inclusion. In both Kahuku and Lava Ridge, community members, ranging from Native Hawaiians and Minidoka incarceration survivors to farmers and rural landowners, mobilized bonding and bridging social capital to frame energy projects as threats to ancestral land, cultural identity, and democratic participation. These movements leveraged digital platforms, legal strategies, and moral appeals to challenge dominant truth regimes and redefine what constitutes harm, progress, and protection.
This dissertation contributes to scholarship in environmental governance, political ecology, and critical infrastructure studies by advancing the concept of cultural environmentalities—a mode of resistance rooted in memory, sacredness, and ontological refusal. It also highlights how discourse operates as both a tool of governance and a terrain of contestation, particularly in contexts where procedural inclusion masks structural exclusion.
By theorizing resistance as both a discursive and material practice, this study offers new insights into the politics of renewable energy siting, the social construction of legitimacy, and the contested meaning of sustainability. It concludes with policy and theoretical recommendations for advancing more participatory, culturally responsive models of environmental governance.
DOI
10.18122/td.2391.boisestate
Recommended Citation
Banner, Marshiela M., "Wind, Power, and Protest: Discourse, Governance, and Resistance in Renewable Energy Transitions: A Comparative Case Study of Kahuku and Lava Ridge" (2025). Boise State University Theses and Dissertations. 2391.
10.18122/td.2391.boisestate