Extractive Settlements in the Global Production Network of Energy Storage Systems

Denne masteroppgaven utforsker de komplekse dynamikkene i nikkelgruvedrift i Indonesia, med spesielt fokus på PT Vale Indonesia Tbk. (PTVI) og dets kritiske rolle innenfor det globale produksjonsnettverket (GPN) av energilagringssystemer (ESS). Studien anvender et dualteoretisk rammeverk som integrerer GPN-rammeverket med teorien om utvinningsforhandlinger, med mål om å forstå hvordan den regionale politiske økonomien påvirker driften og bærekraften til nikkelutvinning. Det primære målet er å undersøke betydningen av interessentstyring i nikkelgruvedriftssektoren, spesielt hvordan forhandlingsmakt påvirker PTVIs drift og produksjon av ESS. Forskningsspørsmålet tar for seg nedstrøms effektene av utvinningsforhandlinger ved PTVIs Sorowako-gruve på ESS-produksjon. Studien baserer seg på primærdata samlet inn under feltarbeid ved Sorowako-gruven. Ved å integrere GPN-rammeverket med teorien om utvinningsforhandlinger, tilbyr oppgaven en nyansert analyse av hvordan regional politisk økonomi påvirker globale produksjonsprosesser. Det todimensjonale GPN-rammeverket gir innsikt i den vertikale forsyningskjeden av ESS og den horisontale forankringen av PTVI innenfor den regionale politiske økonomien. Teorien om utvinningsforhandlinger brukes til å forstå samspillet mellom PTVI og aktører i regionen. Oppgaven finner at PTVI opererer i et volatilt sosiopolitisk miljø som utgjør betydelige risikoer for stabiliteten i nikkelforsyningskjeden. Disse risikoene stammer fra samspillet mellom regionale aktører—regjeringsenheter, lokalsamfunn og urfolk—og selskapet. Forhandlingsmakten til disse ikke-virksomhetsaktørene kan føre til forstyrrelser i gruvedriften, som gjennom omfattende partnerskap påvirker den bredere ESS-forsyningskjeden. Forskningen fremhever viktigheten av bærekraftige gruvepraksiser og effektiv styring av utvinningsforhandlinger for å redusere risikoen knyttet til sosiopolitisk ustabilitet. For PTVI krever det å opprettholde konkurransedynamikk og sikre en stabil forsyning av nikkel gjennom strategisk forvalting av lokale interessentrelasjoner og miljøpåvirkninger. Funnene antyder at PTVI må balansere sine driftsstrategier med behovene og påvirkningene fra regionale aktører for å opprettholde sin rolle i det globale ESS-markedet.This master’s thesis explores the complex dynamics of nickel mining in Indonesia, specifically focusing on PT Vale Indonesia Tbk. (PTVI) and its critical role within the global production network (GPN) of energy storage systems (ESS). The study employs a dual-theoretical framework that integrates the GPN framework with the extractive settlement theory, aiming to understand how the regional political economy in Sorowako, Indonesia, influences the operations and sustainability of nickel mining. The primary objective is to investigate the significance of stakeholder governance in the upstream nickel mining sector, particularly how extra-firm bargaining power impacts PTVI’s operations and ESS GPN. The research question addresses the downstream effects of extractive settlements at PTVI’s Sorowako mine on ESS production. The study relies on primary data collected during field research at the Sorowako mine. By integrating the GPN framework with extractive settlement theory, the thesis offers a nuanced analysis of how the regional political economy impacts global production processes. The two-dimensional GPN framework provides insights into ESS’s vertical supply chain and PTVI’s horizontal embeddedness within the regional political economy. Extractive settlement theory is used to understand the interaction between PTVI and actors within the regional embeddedness. The thesis uncovers that PTVI operates within a volatile sociopolitical environment, which poses significant risks to the stability of the nickel supply chain. These risks, arising from the interactions between regional actors— government entities, local communities, and indigenous populations—and the company, can potentially disrupt mining operations. Through extensive partnerships, these disruptions can reverberate across the broader ESS supply chain, underscoring the urgency of the issue. The research emphasizes the importance of sustainable mining practices and effective governance of extractive settlements in mitigating risks associated with sociopolitical instability. For PTVI, maintaining competitive dynamics and ensuring a stable supply of nickel necessitates strategic management of local stakeholder relations and environmental impacts. The findings suggest that PTVI must carefully balance its operations with the needs and influences of local actors to sustain its role in the global ESS market

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‘Just a Family’Birgit Michelsen: ‘The Catechist, the Dean, and the Socialist’. The History of Three Generations. Published by Anis, Århus, 1989.By Hellmut Toftdahl The writer has written about three people in the history of her family, for whom Christianity was a deeply personal matter. Their crises reflect the crisis which the Christian Church underwent in those years. We also meet several other people in the book, sons and daughters of the three. Their scruples and rebellions, ranging from radical free-thinking to an involvement in German Socialism, are woven together into a vivid presentation of the history of ideas of the time.The main character of the book is the restless, fascinating Christian, who ended his life in Leipzig as a Socialist and naturalized German. With his doubt about the ‘truths’ he had inherited from his family of clergymen, and in his search for the ‘right thinking’, he was ahead of his time. In his honesty and need to be true to himself, he had a good deal in common with both Søren Kierkegaard and Grundtvig, whose contemporary he was.In a Grundtvig context the book is interesting because it affords personal evidence of the ecclesiastical and existential forces that Søren Kierkegaard and Grundtvig, with their liberating theology, were up against among the representatives of the established understanding of Christianity of the time

N.F.S. Grundtvig: »Om Mennesket i Verden«

N. F. S. Grundtvig: On Mankind in the World, Published with an introduction and notes by K. B. Gjesing. Herning 1983. 80 pages. 120 Dkr.Reviewed by Hellmut ToftdahlA separate edition of “an important written source” , often cited in Grundtvig literature, but not a photographic reproduction, as in the edition of the journal Danevirke, from the second volume of which (1817) it is taken. The publisher sheds light on the article’s relation to Grundtvig’s day and age and comments on it with reference to Grundtvig research, in particular Henning Høirup’s Grundtvig’s View of Faith and Epistemology and Erik Heinemeier’s Grundtvig’s View of Man, but only in a footnote to C. I. Scharling’s Grundtvig and Romanticism, in the light of Grundtvig’s Relationship to Schelling. The publisher’s perspective is more ideological than theological and skates over Grundtvig’s clash with romanticism.The article is concerned with the early part of the period when Grundtvig was reacting to Schelling, but at the same time it is noted that in his phraseology and conceptual apparatus Grundtvig is dependent on his school. The publisher appears to be unaware that it is through this philosophical journal that Grundtvig channels his reformatory dreams. The reviewer quotes what Grundtvig himself said about this: “Every word I write is a sharp spear; it is just wrapped in cotton.” This “ cotton” was precisely the conceptual apparatus of the age’s intellectuals. It is true that like all others, even today, Grundtvig thought in dualistic terms. But he refused to identify himself with this way of thought, knowing that the distinction between truth and lying was at odds with the distinction between the bodily and the spiritual. Truth should have a body, and therefore romanticism must comply with Christianity and the historical coming to consciousness after faith. The reviewer regrets the lack of reference to the work of Helge Grell, William Michelsen and Flemming Lundgreen-Nielsen. The condition of man as a creature with a tendency to raise himself above the creator falls outside the publisher’s ideological understanding; but it was here that Grundtvig saw the greatest danger in German romanticism, as is clear from his own text

Kierkegaard og Grundtvig

Grundtvig and KierkegaardGötz Harbsmeier: Wer ist der Mensch? - Kontroverse um Kierkegaard und Grundtvig. Vol. III. Reviewed by Hellmut Toftdahl.This book, (which the author himself refers to in his preceding paper on Grundtvig and Germany) has been reviewed partly as an introduction to Grundtvig, partly as a contribution to the debate on Grundtvig and Kierkegaard, since the last chapter is devoted to the theme promised by the title of this series. The two preceding volumes in this series were reviewed in Grundtvig-Studier 1971.The book is the outcome of a lifelong preoccupation with Grundtvig’s life and work and all that the idea of Grundtvig and Grundtvigianism stands for. It contains excellent translations into German of central Grundtvig texts, with notes that testify to true German thoroughness and which are plainly inspired by Kaj Thaning’s interpretation of Grundtvig. Grundtvig the anthropologist stands out more clearly than the theologian, which, according to the reviewer, will no doubt be of greatest interest to the Germans. The aim of the book is to present to the Germans an alternative to German nationalism - an alternative that does not repudiate patriotism, the language and the nation, but avoids the tenets of the neo-Nazi ideology. The fact is stressed that Grundtvig’s ideas on nationalism must be seen in relation to his time. Here Harbsmeier answers Johannes Tiedje who, in 1927, cited Grundtvig in support of ideas which could be regarded as precursors of Nazism. This chapter could stimulate Germans to study Grundtvig’s ideas on nationalism in greater detail.As part of the “Auseinandersetzung” with Kierkegaard which the series presents, the reviewer feels, however, that this volume is not able to remedy what started to go wrong in volume II. Harbsmeier confronts K. E. Løgstrup’s picture of Kierkegaard with Thaning’s picture of Grundtvig, which must of course be to Grundtvig’s advantage, but he quite rightly points out that Grundtvig did not know much about the works of Kierkegaard.An impartial assessment of the two thinkers is lacking then. In view of the fact that Kierkegaard rejects the idea of there being a historical basis for determining what is true Christianity, the reviewer finds it surprising that Kierkegaard can be bracketed with orthodox and pietistic Christians, who consider the Bible the absolute norm for the Christian life. He also disagrees with Harbsmeier’s interpretation of Kierkegaard’s conception of »inderlighed« (intensity) and of »samtidighed« (contemporaneity), maintaining that the contemporaneity which Kierkegaard demands of the believer is a confrontation, aiming at self-examination, with the existence expressed through the Christ figure of the Gospels.As Kierkegaard knows that this existence can be variously interpreted, but will always provide a model for imitation, and that it cannot be imitated in the concrete life, the two thinkers are, according to the reviewer, much closer to each other than Grundtvig realized - or than this series shows. There is in Kierkegaard’s works an ambiguity which appears in his ironic style, and which in fact makes Kierkegaard find redemption in the concrete present life, the redemption which he calls »Gjentagelsen« (repetition). The only writer in the series who has appreciated this is Hinrich Buss in volume 1. It is a pity - Grundtvig will command attention without that sort of advertisement

Grundtvig og mystikken

Grundtvig and mysticismBy Hellmut ToftdahlThe article appraises Grundtvig in relation to the Eros-agape tradition in Christianity. Common to mysticism and gnosticism is the idea that through Eros-love an can attain union with God and thereby grasp truth, together with the fact that the important thing is self-redemption through achievement. Both are hostile to institutions and are a threat to the Church, for institutional fellowship and the outward actions of the Church are unimportant. Worship, dogmatics and the institution give place to subjective experience or higher cognition. The distance between God as the Creator and man as the creature is obliterated and Christ is conceived as an incorporeal link between God and man.Eros-love is often expressed in Grundtvig’s poetry, especially in his early poetry, where he has a tendency to overestimate his own importance as the spiritual leader of the Danish people, and to place himself on a par with the prophets of the Old Testament, i. e. a man whose personal visions represented truth and guidance for a whole people. A controversy between Grundtvig and H. C. Ørsted in 1815 makes Grundtvig admit the necessity of being on his guard against his own visions. False as well as true visions exist, and because of man’s condition as a creature in time and space it is not possible for him to distinguish clearly between true and false prophets. After 1815 Grundtvig no longer sees himself as a prophet but as a poet. To him a poet is a visionary, a seer of divine truths or diabolical hallucinations. Grundtvig’s attitude to his visions is based on ethical considerations of their truth value and he consciously eliminates any visions that reflect self-willedness or acute depression. He places his poetry at the disposal of the community in baptism, Holy Communion and hymn singing. His work is the result of an uncommon individual steering an even course between a universe based on personal struggles and the striving of the Eros-love to go beyond this universe. For Grundtvig the criterion for an even course is solidarity with his own social context, and not, as in the case of the mystic, development into an ecstatic vision of the boundlessness of the Ego. Grundtvig’s congregation exists in time and grows with time. The mystic is sufficient to himself in ecstacy and his experience is beyond time and space. The mystic seeks eternity in the present and the world around fades as inspiration grows. Grundtvig acts within time. His poetic universe is a cosmos in which chaos is always present as a possibility that he will not accept. Grundtvig’s Eros-love attains fullness through preaching, the confession of faith, and praise within the limits of this cosmos; in the community which the congregation creates through this activity there is the possibility that the Eros-love will be met by agape, but only if God so wishes and only if the individual has prepared himself for agape through fruitful, collective activity