Paper short abstract:

Metallic mining is again developing in Europe, under the cloak of the 'energy transition'. In these peculiar mining landscapes, technological promises of 21st century mining mingle with industrial past. The paper will analyse discourses and materiality of this mining temporality in Andalusia.

Paper long abstract:

Discourses of 'sustainable mining' are surprisingly spreading in Europe. Coming from the Global South, where corporations appropriate sustainable development language as a legitimizing strategy (Kirsch 2010), they are reaching old mining territories in United States and in Europe. There, mining renewal appears as a paradoxical remedy to the economic and ecological crisis. The dependence of the energy transition on 'strategic resources' necessary to renewable energy production and storage leads to a 'green energy bargain' that associates decarbonization and metallic mining (Phadke 2018). The paper will address the paradoxes of such 'green' extractivism analysing how technological promises encounter with industrial past. It will analyse promises of mining renewal focusing on Andalusia (Southern Spain) and on the particular case of the Riotinto copper mine. While its museum is emblematic of mining heritage-making (Hernández Ramírez and Ruiz Ballesteros 2007), corporations and authorities now aim to make Riotinto an example of the 21st century mining. How do industrial heritage-making and discourses on future mining combine to perform new regimes of extractivism? The paper will investigate this peculiar 'mining timescape' (D'Angelo and Pijpers 2018) and its influence on extractive materiality at two scales. Starting from the observation of a mining professional congress in Sevilla, I will analyse the 'economics of techno-scientific promises' (Joly 2010) of automated, energy-efficient and secure mining. I will then skip to the Riotinto mine to grasp the materiality of mining renewal through the coexistence of technological promises and industrial heritage, paying attention to the new forms of subjection it generates.