Blue (Un)certainties: Mitigization of the Deep-Sea Mining Policy Process in the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge, Norway
2025-12-02
Policymaking can shape knowledge uncertainties in unpredictable ways. The idea of deep-sea mining (DSM) is riddled with uncertainties—including legal, technological, economic—and an extensive lack of knowledge of the deep sea. In this article, we describe the treatment of uncertainties in Norway’s DSM policy process led by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. We analyze the trail of documents leading to the opening of the continental shelf for DSM exploration and exploitation. Focusing on the impact assessment and the associated science and expert reports, we use translation as the analytical lens to explore how science and expert knowledges are transformed for policy use. We find strong patterns of a certainty–uncertainty dichotomy, indicating a tension between various uncertainties and the need for certainty to legitimize the opening. We show how uncertainties are transformed through the structure and content of the document trail, exemplifying a type of translation that we term mitigization. In sum, scientific and expert knowledge seems to be used not to inform but to enable predefined political decisions.