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Paper short abstract

In this paper, I will show the mining continuum between fossil fuels and renewables in Arizona. Rather than transforming production and consumption, "green" extractivism gives a second youth to capitalism. Anthropologists have a unique opportunity to step up and show this fallacy with their datas.

Paper long abstract

In this paper, I will present some findings of my new research, started in October 2025 in Arizona. Based in three ethnographic fields centered around green mining and the promesses of technology to "save our planet" : 1) a future mine near the Mexican frontier digging zinc, manganese and silver; 2) a research center working on phyto-remediation of mining sites at the University of Arizona and financed by the mining industry and 3) a future datacenter in Leupp, on Indigenous land, in the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation has already suffered from a century of extractivism (oil, coal, methane, uranium) and its water rights are negotiated by different states and industries. Yet, the Navajo Nation suffers, as the state of Arizona of a severe drought, emptying its groundwater.

Rather than criticizing fossil industries and embracing green extractivism who proclaims to be the only answer to climate change, I propose to see this phenomenom as a mining continuum, painted as green and virtuous extractivism. Climate change offers an opportunity for multinational corporations to clean up their names and reputations.

Here, anthropologists -working on the ground and with the people directly impacted by these new projects, with the scientists and engineers allowing these technologies to be seen as the best and only solution- have an unique opportunity to change the narrative. In other words, to intervene and go beyond the official solutions, to show that, once again, in the name of capitalism, lands and people are sacrificed and ecosystems are destroyed.