Peder Ressem Østring

• Knutsen, Hege Merete; Jordhus-Lier, David; Sliwa, Marcin & Østring, Peder Ressem (2025). The role of unions in shaping work-based precarity on the Norwegian continental shelf. Economic and Industrial Democracy: an international journal. ISSN 0143-831X. doi: 10.1177/0143831x251383669. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Based on desk studies and qualitative interviews with both workers and union representatives at different levels, we explore how Polish temporary migrant workers in the offshore-related industrial services and maintenance sector in Norway experience precarity; their relationship with unions at different levels; and how the unions tackle the challenges of representing them. The distinction between how unions operate to tackle precarity on the strategic level and in everyday practices provides a nuanced picture of what even strong, institutionally embedded unions and temporary workers face in stemming precarity. It underscores how important engagement of the unions is in everyday practices for temporary migrant workers to benefit from the regulatory achievements they make, and yet how challenging measures against precarity are to implement in contexts of sharp competition in labour costs.

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• Østring, Peder Ressem (2026). The Battle of the ‘Spar: A conjunctural analysis of the Brent Spar controversy. doi: https:/tu-dresden.de/gsw/slk/anglistik_amerikanistik/na-literatur/petrocultures2026/full-program-und-book-of-abstracts?set_language=en. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The oil and gas industry has shaped coastal and oceanic landscapes in the North Sea Region for well over half a century. Today, the North Sea is home to hundreds of oil platforms, thousands of deepwater oil wells, and an extensive network of pipelines. Following a spectacular dispute in the late 1990s between Shell and environmental activists regarding the proposed dumping of a loading buoy called Brent Spar, regulations were put in place that, as a rule, prohibited deepwater disposal. This presentation revisits the events of 1995 where Greenpeace was able to out-maneuver Shell in a fierce battle over narratives. In this epoch-making conflict, the very multinational nature of Shell left them vulnerable to international campaigns in protests of the proposed dumping of the Spar. During the spring and summer of 1995, Greenpeace activists, consumers, top level ministers – and even a radical flank of activists taking direct action against Shell property – played a role in shaping the outcome. This presentation seeks to showcase how the policy duopoly of industry and bureaucrats was broken by interventions from the wider public across various scales. Following the cues of Doreen Massey and Stuart Hall, and as more recently articulated by geographer Jamie Peck, the analysis of the Brent Spar case is set in the tradition of a conjunctural analysis. Here, the Brent Spar controversy is used as a prism to shed light on various political, economic and cultural contradictions that together made up these critical moments of 1995 – and through which the geometries of power in the North Sea can better be understood. In times of runaway climate crisis, the Brent Spar case, which challenged fossil capital through popular organisation, is well worth a deeper inquiry. The presentation will draw on fieldwork, interviews and archival research in Norway, the Netherlands and the UK.

• Østring, Peder Ressem (2026). Kull og klassekamp i England. [Journal]. Gnist ISSN 2535-3195. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Man kan ikke forstå dagens britiske politikk uten å forstå de langsiktige følgene av den tapte gruvestreiken ‘84–85 og påfølgende industridød, mener den britiske marxisten Ray Hudson. Gnist har vært på reportasjereise til Nordøst-England i ruinene etter tiår med nyliberalisme.

• Østring, Peder Ressem; Rawson, Ava & Müller, Anders Riel (2026). The Age of Decommissioning in the North Sea | University of Stavanger. doi: https:/www.uis.no/en/research/events/social-sciences/the-age-of-decommissioning-in-the-north-sea. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  What happens when the infrastructures of the fossil fuel era in one way or the other, reach the end of their productive lives? Can decommissioning become a site for more just and sustainable futures, or does it reveal new tensions around responsibility, value, and time?

• Østring, Peder Ressem (2025). The legacy of the Brent Spar battle: A multi-scalar struggle over North Sea decommissioning. doi: https:/www.sv.uio.no/tik/english/research/network/oil-and-society/events/network-gathering-north-sea.html. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Following a dispute in the late 1990s between Shell and Greenpeace regarding the proposed dumping of the loading buoy called Brent Spar, regulations were put in place that, as a rule, prohibited deep-water disposal. This presentation revisits the Brent-Spar case of the 1990s where civil society was able to out-maneuver the multinational company Shell, in a spectacular battle over different scales and over narratives. The presentation further asks what the implications from the Brent Spar case are two decades on, in a period where a wave of aging structures is expected to hit the mainland. Faced with this immense and costly challenge, we might see contradictory interests once again blossom into an open conflict over regulation and use of oceanic space.

• Østring, Peder Ressem (2025). Dealing With the Ghosts of Past Energy Production in the North Sea. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The North Sea is littered with hundreds of oil platforms, thousands of wells and a complex web of pipelines than totaling more than the worlds circumference. Together with the ever-increasing amount of offshore wind turbines, this makes up a vast energy landscape. As these structures increasingly go towards the end of productive use within this decade – due to material wear and tear or empty fields of oil and gas – current regulation compels their removal. Today, there is an emerging industry handling disused fossil infrastructure in the North Sea region, but there are also several examples of how decommissioning takes part of an ecologically unequal exchange in which drilling rigs ending up on beaches in the global south, to the detriment of precarious workers and the local environment. The way we handle the “ghosts” of past energy extraction will have a wide range of social implications in the time ahead – for a just transition, a circular economy, and the navigability of the oceanic space.

• Østring, Peder Ressem (2025). En tikkende økonomisk bombe. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2024). Renewables Versus Reindeer Herding: Green Dispossession and Sámi Resistance in Norway. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2024). Mellom reformer og ramaskrik. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2024). Tar kampen mot fossilene. Klassekampen. ISSN 0805-3839. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2024). Dismantling Fossil Capital – The Labour of North Sea Decommissioning. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2024). Equinor og kaptein Sorte Bill. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2024). Shutting Down and Cleaning Up: The Labor Regimes of Oil and Gas Decommissioning. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2024). Ryddejobben i Nordsjøen – muligheter og utfordringer for en rettferdig omstilling. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  I Nordsjøen finner vi hundrevis av plattformer, tusenvis av brønner og titusenvis av kilometer med rørledninger må ryddes opp i årene som kommer. I dette foredraget vil stipendiat Peder Østring kaste et geografisk blikk på den enorme ryddejobben som står foran oss: En internasjonal prosess med konsekvenser for sirkulær økonomi, kystsamfunn og miljøet i havet. Hvilke barrierer og muligheter finnes for at opprydningen kan bli del av en rettferdig omstilling vekk fra fossil energi?

• Østring, Peder Ressem (2023). Gnist-samtalen med Matt Huber: Klimakamp er klassekamp. [Journal]. Gnist- Marxistisk tidsskrift. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2022). Ammunisjon mot tåkelegging i klimakampen. Gnist- Marxistisk tidsskrift. ISSN 2535-3195. 1. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2021). På kanten – Norsk oljevirksomhet i Barentshavet og hvorfor det må settes en strek. Gnist- Marxistisk tidsskrift. ISSN 2535-3195. Full text in Research Archive
• Østring, Peder Ressem (2021). Degrowth and Eco-Marxism: Against the narcissism of small differences. Tvergastein. ISSN 1893-5605. p. 150–166. Full text in Research Archive
• Jordhus-Lier, David; Houeland, Camilla; Holmås, Heikki; Szulecki, Kacper & Østring, Peder Ressem (2022). Petroleum Transition Pathways in Norway. How do Norwegian stakeholders envision pathways to net-zero and phase-out for the country’s oil and gas sector? Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive

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