4
1 Introduction
future social investment practices in the O&G sector, creating a new research problem
and opening up potential for future research in social investment in the O&G sector.
Consequently, when I embarked on this research journey, I wanted to understand
and expand upon my own experiences in the O&G sector by listening to other professionals that directly work with social investment. I, therefore, aimed to explore how
O&G social investment experts understood and practised social investment in the
O&G industry through attending to the discourses they adopted when talking about
social investment in the O&G sector. I also aimed to explore how experts dealt with
the challenges they face while implementing social investment.
In broad terms, this book addresses four questions. These are:
1. Which discourses do O&G social investment personnel draw on to talk about
social investment?
2. How are the discourses adopted by the O&G participants reproduced in the social
investment guideline documents?
3. What are the experts’ recommendations for future O&G social investment?
4. Which discourses are evident in participants’ recommendations for future O&G
social investment?
Chapter 5 elaborates on how the research questions were developed.
1.3 Theoretical Approach
In this book, discourse refers to “an interrelated system of statements which cohere
around meanings and values … [that] is a product of social factors, of powers and
practices, rather than an individual’s set of ideas” (Hollway, 1983, p. 231). Discourse
as interpretive statements articulated through language constantly constructs objects
and ‘subject positions’ (Gavey, 1997; Potter & Wetherell, 1994). In my understanding
of discourse, discourse is not a mere reflection of social identities and relations,
because it is constitutive, continuously changing and reconstructing identities and
relations as discourses are enacted (Pennycook, 2001; Walshaw, 2007).
However, I am also mindful that it is not language alone that shapes discourse
but also the materiality of things (Fleetwood, 2005; Sims-Schouten, Riley, & Willig,
2007) which has an agentic role (Barad, 2003) in shaping discursive practices. Both
language and the material are in an “intense and inseparable entanglement” or “knot
[that] can never be unravelled or disentangled” (Carpentier, 2017, p. 4; 2019).
In this book, I draw on Sims-Schouten et al.’s (2007) critical realist perspective, which considers that material practices, although not reduced to discourse, are
nevertheless connected to discursive practices. Specifically, I recognise the material
consequences of O&G companies’ operations and their influence in shaping social
investment discourses and hierarchical relations of power between companies and
communities. I acknowledge the materiality of O&G pipelines and other infrastructure while recognising that social investment experts discursively constructed them
in a variety of ways, for example, in relation to the disruptions and benefits such
1 Introduction
future social investment practices in the O&G sector, creating a new research problem
and opening up potential for future research in social investment in the O&G sector.
Consequently, when I embarked on this research journey, I wanted to understand
and expand upon my own experiences in the O&G sector by listening to other professionals that directly work with social investment. I, therefore, aimed to explore how
O&G social investment experts understood and practised social investment in the
O&G industry through attending to the discourses they adopted when talking about
social investment in the O&G sector. I also aimed to explore how experts dealt with
the challenges they face while implementing social investment.
In broad terms, this book addresses four questions. These are:
1. Which discourses do O&G social investment personnel draw on to talk about
social investment?
2. How are the discourses adopted by the O&G participants reproduced in the social
investment guideline documents?
3. What are the experts’ recommendations for future O&G social investment?
4. Which discourses are evident in participants’ recommendations for future O&G
social investment?
Chapter 5 elaborates on how the research questions were developed.
1.3 Theoretical Approach
In this book, discourse refers to “an interrelated system of statements which cohere
around meanings and values … [that] is a product of social factors, of powers and
practices, rather than an individual’s set of ideas” (Hollway, 1983, p. 231). Discourse
as interpretive statements articulated through language constantly constructs objects
and ‘subject positions’ (Gavey, 1997; Potter & Wetherell, 1994). In my understanding
of discourse, discourse is not a mere reflection of social identities and relations,
because it is constitutive, continuously changing and reconstructing identities and
relations as discourses are enacted (Pennycook, 2001; Walshaw, 2007).
However, I am also mindful that it is not language alone that shapes discourse
but also the materiality of things (Fleetwood, 2005; Sims-Schouten, Riley, & Willig,
2007) which has an agentic role (Barad, 2003) in shaping discursive practices. Both
language and the material are in an “intense and inseparable entanglement” or “knot
[that] can never be unravelled or disentangled” (Carpentier, 2017, p. 4; 2019).
In this book, I draw on Sims-Schouten et al.’s (2007) critical realist perspective, which considers that material practices, although not reduced to discourse, are
nevertheless connected to discursive practices. Specifically, I recognise the material
consequences of O&G companies’ operations and their influence in shaping social
investment discourses and hierarchical relations of power between companies and
communities. I acknowledge the materiality of O&G pipelines and other infrastructure while recognising that social investment experts discursively constructed them
in a variety of ways, for example, in relation to the disruptions and benefits such