Building tunnels, burning bridges : a feminist critical discourse analysis on the gender-infrastructure nexus in the case of planning inter-island linkages on the Faroe Islands.

Abstract: This study concerns hegemonic claims of knowing and how they manifest as discourses on interconnecting infrastructure planning on the Faroe Islands. The archipelago can be considered a substantial infrastructural project, with several sub-sea tunnels in the construction and planning-stages. Following the increasing attention to the gendered nature of infrastructure planning, this study travels to the North Atlantic Ocean to examine the relations between gender and infrastructure. Applying a feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA) to the Faroese Agency of Public Works planning reports we have been able to identify a masculinist planning discourse formulating gendered planning objectives. The analysis will therefore examine both sides of the gender-infrastructure nexus: how gender relations impact infrastructure, and how infrastructure has gendered outcomes. By positioning the study in the field of island studies, especially drawing on the evolving strand of island feminism, we adress the main research question: Applying a feminist critical discourse analysis, how can the planning of inter-island linkages on the Faroe Islands, with a specific focus on sub-sea tunnels, be understood as a gendered development project? By challenge the masucilinist understanding of space, we conclude that interconnecting infrastructure planning on the Faroe Islands is a gendered development project.