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Contribution short abstract:

The contribution discusses colonial projects of extractivist power in their new geographical frontiers and temporal dimensions, specifically, the new wave of extractivism in Finland. The contribution also maps out other visions that aim to contest the encroachment of extractivist power.

Contribution long abstract:

The contribution presents an analysis in progress for the research project “Pluriversal Waters: Tracing Hydro-Ontologies across Colonial-Extractivist Assemblages.” More specifically, the contribution discusses colonial projects of extractivist power in their new geographical frontiers and temporal dimensions.

While some regions are experiencing post-extractivist pasts or presents, this research explores the extractivist futures. Specifically, it examines the new wave of extractivism in Finland, driven by the so-called green transition. These new extractive developments can be characterized as colonial, as they employ similar tropes of "empty lands" for the sake of extractivism, benefiting the state and transnational capital. This new wave of extractivism is further militarized within the current geopolitical environment, as the EU's search for Critical Raw Materials opens up new frontiers within its geopolitically friendly camps.

These extractive futures are now being projected onto mineral policies and acts, as well as the cartographies of newly discovered minerals on these “empty lands”. However, these "empty lands" are the living environments of the indigenous Sámi population and Finnish reindeer herders, as well as numerous other species. For the communities living on these lands, this creates uncertain futures, materialized in the present through the knowledge of minerals existing in the ground. These futures concern both human and non-human inhabitants, as well as the water cycles that traverse these environments. Despite the dominant vision for the extractive future, the contribution also maps out other visions that aim to contest the encroachment of extractivist power.