Achieving Human and Societal Security in Oil Producing Regions: A Komi-Izhma Community Perspective from Pripechor’e, Russia

This paper explores how communities affected by crude oil development seek greater human and societal security. A relational approach, informed by a relational justice perspective, is suggested to examine community experiences of interaction with the state and oil companies. The approach is operationalized through a case study from Pripechor’e in northwestern Russia. The focus is on the efforts of Komi-Izhma communities and an ethnic movement Izvatas to secure their rights in the face of expanding oil industry in the Timan-Pechora oil and gas province, an important oil producing area in the Barents region. Oil development affected access to land, clean water and biological resources, critical for livelihoods, as well as human and animal health. Fieldwork in 2015 suggests that while community actors consider themselves empowered, they experience relational injustice in interaction with powerful actors. The lack of guaranteed rights and limited formal options for dispute resolution have altered the spaces of securitization, with communities claiming some of their rights from an oil company rather than the state. Therefore, the underlying social and political structures and processes, through which relations between local communities and other actors develop, must be considered in the analysis of communities pursuing greater human and societal security.