What Is the Benefit of Community Benefits? Exploring Local Perceptions of the Provision of Community Benefits from a Commercial Wind Energy Project

Where community ownership of renewable energy projects is not feasible, there remains potential for residents to profit from locally sited projects through a ‘community benefits’ package from a commercial developer, usually as an annual cash payment to a community organisation. Despite support from policy-makers and developers for community benefit packages, the relationship between the benefit package and acceptance of renewable energy projects is not straightforward. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with local residents and other community actors near a wind development in central Scotland, this paper examines the ‘process’ and ‘outcome’ dimensions of the design and provision of community benefits, and considers how the relationship between these two dimensions affects local perceptions of the benefit of community benefits. Analysis of interviewees’ perceptions of the community engagement ‘process’ at the planning stage and the community benefit package ‘outcome’ reveals how a poorly defined engagement process, combined with a benefits package that is not deemed suitable for the needs of the community, can lead to negative perceptions of the project, even when these were initially positive. These findings have implications for renewable energy policy in Scotland, particularly as there is currently no legal obligation for developers to consult communities on community benefit arrangements.     

The shock of the old: architectural preservation in Soviet Russia

In Soviet sources from the Brezhnev era, the history of architectural preservation after 1917 was presented as a triumph of rational state‐building and cultural organisation: with the support of Lenin, the Bolshevik government had rapidly put in place effective measures to protect historic buildings for future generations. As this article shows, the evolution of legislative and practical measures was considerably more complicated than this optimistic representation would suggest. In the early Soviet period, a highly ideologised understanding of the past meant that preservationist ambitions might (especially during the ‘Great Break’ of 1928–1932) be seen as intrinsically reactionary. The canon of historical buildings was shaped by perceptions of centrality to Soviet values, as well as historical and aesthetic importance. The article also explores the transformation of attitudes to architectural heritage as a response to destruction by the invading forces during the ‘Great Patriotic War’, after which commitment to preservation became far more whole‐hearted, although enforcement and financial support continued to be inconsistent. The Soviet case indicates not just the importance of heritage preservation to the cultural ambitions and self‐image of the modern state but the limits of commitment to preservation and the pressure placed on this by the commitment to all‐out modernisation and to the propaganda of new identities and values.     

The Linguistics of Inhabiting Space: Spatial Reference in the North-East Ambae Language1

North-East Ambae, a member of the Oceanic sub-group of Austronesian, is spoken on the volcanic island of Ambae, in northern Vanuatu. Like many Austronesian languages, it has a complex system of spatial reference. In this paper I describe one aspect of this system, the use of the members of the word class of ‘directionals’. Directionals can be used to refer to both direction of movement and location in space, and involve the interaction between an absolute and a deictic system. The absolute system is based on a division of the environment that uses both the vertical axis and the landward-seaward axis, although it also uses other divisions. Onto this absolute system is mapped a partially deictic system, such that each of the oppositions of the absolute system can be marked according to a three-way distinction relative to the participants of the speech act. That the speakers are highly attuned to their environment is reflected in the use of this complex spatial reference system. The paper underlines the importance of detailed analyses of spatial reference systems in describing languages, reflecting the significance of such systems in common language use.