Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality,
and to see the links to virtual rooms.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Iva Pesa
(Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)
Antoine Acker (University of GENEVA)
Michela Coletta (University of Warwick)
Sheng Fei
Send message to Convenors
- Chair:
-
Nathalia Capellini
(University of Geneva)
- Discussants:
-
Michela Coletta
(University of Warwick)
Antoine Acker (University of GENEVA)
- Formats:
- Panel
- Streams:
- Nature for Harvest: Commodities and Resources
- Location:
- Room 17
- Sessions:
- Thursday 22 August, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Helsinki
Short Abstract:
How does resource extraction influence knowledge production about the environment? Through literature, music, art, and a focus on lived experiences we seek to grasp changing perceptions and forms of knowledge in extraction ecologies, particularly in the Global South.
Long Abstract:
Mining and oil drilling are transformative activities: they irrevocably alter landscapes, ecologies, and lifeworlds. How do people living close to extractive sites make sense of the inherent unsustainability of ‘extraction ecologies’ (Miller, 2021)? This panel asks how resource extraction influences knowledge production about the environment. Why do Andean communities mobilise notions of buen vivir, while those in the Niger Delta refer to environmental transformation as ‘ecocide’? Does extractivism transform socio-environmental knowledge, or do forms of knowing adapt and endure? How do mine dumps, oil spills, and toxicity change people’s understandings of the air, water, and notions of life-bearing fertility? Our panel is particularly interested in African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern localities, where resource extraction tends to be interwoven with relationships of colonialism, capitalism, and highly unequal patterns of globalisation. We argue that adopting a transdisciplinary approach by examining oral history, popular music, literature, and folklore is crucial in order to grasp meanings, values, and worldviews related to environmental change. How did artistic expressions envisage alternatives to resource extraction, ones that centered on fertility, multispecies relationships, and community wellbeing? As resource extraction remains crucial, even more so for a ‘green transition’, it is imperative to understand the interconnections between these historical transformations and forms of environmental knowledge production.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 22 August, 2024, -Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the everyday vernacular knowledges produced by artisanal miners as they navigate mining toxicities and accidents in Zimbabwe.
Paper long abstract:
The mining economy of Zimbabwe depends on gold outputs from Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining, but beyond this Panglossian upbeat picture, there is a darker story of extractivism. Gold mining has resulted in the extensive use of cyanide, mercury and arsenic acid and these chemicals have affected the health and everyday life of artisanal miners. This paper seeks to explore the environmental history of mining pollution in three localities of resource extraction in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland province. While there a copious scholarship on mining pollution, there is limited literature that engages with the ingenuity of miners in navigating radioactive toxic waste and their everyday environmental intellectual consciousness. Drawing from engaged ethnographic fieldwork with interlocutors, this paper demonstrates that while miners negotiate chemical exposure in mining, they also learn about the nature of chemicals, its emotive behaviours and as a result they develop idiographic language on how they think and reimagine toxicities. This paper argues that while miners work and adapt to the toxic circumstances, they create knowledge and develop vernacular ideas on pristine landscapes, dust behaviour in underground tunnels mines as ways of navigating toxic exposure. Using toxic tales from children, the paper reimagines toxicity as both destructive but also inseparable from capital accumulation and livelihoods in mining frontiers. The paper joins the growing conversation on environmental transformation in southern Africa and expands the complicated historiographies of resource extraction, toxicology, socio-environmental knowledge ,capital accumulation and livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation will showcase the work of the AnthropoSouth research project, which aims to investigates the history of oil extraction in a pan-Latin American context and, through that, rethink the history of the Anthropocene from a non-western perspective.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation will showcase the different approaches of the AnthropoSouth research project, which aims to investigate the history of oil extraction in a pan-Latin American context. Focusing on this fossil fuel we aim to trace the history of Latin America within the modern world and, through that, to rethink the history of the Anthropocene from a non-western perspective. By highlighting the mechanisms that led post-colonial nations to adopt fossil-fueled economic models, the project aims to show how Latin American countries used petroleum as a lever to strengthen their political sovereignty as well as their position in the global economy.
The presentation will highlight several key insights from the individual projects that comprise the AnthropoSouth team, using different scales of analysis to compare and connect the history of different national projects of petroleum development. One part will deal with the history of Latin American oil towns as a contested environment where labor and social movements as well as oil companies articulated and fought over different visions of modernity and energy justice. Another part will focus on the role of energy infrastructure in Latin America's industrialization program, and the relationship between uneven economic growth and the reproduction of social and environmental problems. A third and final part will reflect on the expansion of oil extraction frontiers in the Amazonian territory, considering how a specific biome could shape, but also constrain national economic development projects.
Paper short abstract:
I propose the concept 'Township Environmentalism' as a comprehensive framework to understand the complexities of gold mine dump townships in the Anthropocene era.
Paper long abstract:
The multitude of environmentalism theories plays a crucial role in addressing challenges posed by the Anthropocene. However, I argue that these theories alone cannot adequately convey the intricate story of gold mine dump townships in the Witwatersrand in a fair and comprehensive manner. Thus, I propose the concept of 'Township Environmentalism' as an encompassing framework, aiming to recognise both vocal and less overt forms of environmental activism within this unique context. This approach acknowledges the coexistence of active and passive expressions of environmental concern. By decentralising the study of 'Township Environmentalism,' two sub-concepts emerge: 'Micro Environmental Activism' and 'Environmentalism of the Belly.' These concepts shed light on the diverse ways individuals and communities within townships engage with and respond to environmental challenges. While this paper adopts a theoretical approach primarily, I plan to bolster my arguments by integrating preliminary findings from fieldwork in South Africa. These empirical observations will enrich the understanding of the proposed concept and provide real-world examples of 'Township Environmentalism' in action. While acknowledging the benefits of other decentralised and decolonialised environmentalism theories like 'Black Environmentalism' and 'Environmentalism of the Poor,' I argue that they have inherent limitations in capturing the unique perspectives and responses of Witwatersrand township residents. 'Township Environmentalism' offers a more nuanced and contextually relevant framework to interpret the dynamics at play in this specific setting.
Paper short abstract:
Fracking in the Beetaloo Basin has sparked national debates due to excessive groundwater use and pollution, particularly for Aboriginal communities. I explore how anti-fracking activists mobilise hydrological science and Aboriginal traditions to reshape public perceptions of subterranean landscapes.
Paper long abstract:
Like other arid regions in Australia, the Beetaloo Basin relies largely on underground water for human consumption and agricultural industries. The introduction of hydraulic fracturing (i.e., ‘fracking’) industries to this region has therefore faced heavy local and national contestation. Fracking’s overuse of groundwater resources, in addition to potential pollution, has resulted in major concerns from local communities over the implications to their everyday lives and long-term survival in the region.
Fracking’s impact on underground environments raises significant and particular concerns for local Aboriginal peoples, who constitute the majority of the area’s population and frequently associate the underground with traditional Aboriginal creation narratives. Not only does this conflict add to ongoing historical and institutional injustices caused by the colonial legacy, it also raises new questions about the juxtaposition of Aboriginal ancestral land knowledge and modern influx and privileging of resource extraction(ism). Sitting at the nexus of Indigeneity, Aboriginal tradition, environmentalist ideals, and hydrological science, my ethnographic fieldwork explores how these concepts are mobilised by anti-fracking Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists. With specific attention to both hydrological science and Aboriginal traditional narratives, this work explores their collaborative potential in politicised environmental disputes to produce fresh perspectives on how subterranean landscapes gain significance in the public imagination.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores debates concerning the International Mineralogical Association's mineral classification system. The paper explores these debates, emphasizing their institutional commitments and implications for the development of post-extractivist futures.
Paper long abstract:
Geoscientists are increasingly challenging the mineral taxonomy system used by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA), proposing new taxonomies that consider more than mineral’s officially recognized properties. While the IMA’s classification system – which has been used for over 200 years – classifies minerals according to their structural and chemical makeup, researchers have challenged the epistemological basis of this taxonomy, proposing a new classification system that reflects the impact that living beings have had in the formation of mineral ‘kinds’ and deposits.
As such, these new taxonomies draw attention to a link between organic life and inorganic matter often overlooked by researchers both within and beyond the fields of geology and mineralogy. Unsurprisingly, these new taxonomies have been met with criticism led by researchers committed to defending the IMA’s classification system because of its practical uses. In fact, the original IMA taxonomy was developed for applied purposes (e.g., in chemistry, mining, and engineering) and continues to serve our practical needs accordingly.
This paper explores the history of the IMA’s mineral classification system and the implications that the adoption of an alternative taxonomy could have for the development of green post-extractivist futures. To this end, I highlight how our current understanding of minerals is tied to extractivist onto-epistemological systems that reflect a vision of modernity that we are trying to transition away from. Indeed, these alternative taxonomies provide not only a means of reconceptualizing minerals but also provide important conceptual resources for thinking about the material and institutional basis of post-extractivist futures.
Paper short abstract:
This article examines how artisanal and small-scale chromite miners in Zimbabwe generate tacit knowledge of geology, metallurgy, and resource extraction processes through their everyday practices and the use of vernacular and colloquial terms to describe different phenomena.
Paper long abstract:
This article examines how artisanal and small-scale chromite miners in Zimbabwe generate tacit knowledge of geology, metallurgy, and resource extraction processes through their everyday practices and the use of vernacular and colloquial terms to describe different phenomena. It argues that artisanal chromite miners’ mining practices are often framed by the uncertainties generated by the material qualities of the mineral resources. These include the nature of the mineral deposit (i.e stratiform, podiform, eluvial) as well as whether the seam is affected by faulting or not (healthy or terminally ill). The article argues that the vernacular and colloquial terms deployed by artisanal miners to describe specific geological features and mining processes demonstrate how geological factors and specific properties of mineral resources frame the socio-spatial practices of miners. The terms also evince artisanal miners’ understanding of the uncertainties that geological factors and material qualities of minerals generate. The article argues that artisanal and small-scale miners’ knowledge of the “behaviour” of chromite seams form an important part of their understanding of the world of resource extraction and the centrality of material qualities of minerals in the resource extraction processes. Overall, the article explores how artisanal and small-scale chromite miners play a critical role in the production of geological, metallurgical, and resource extraction knowledge and how this knowledge converge, diverge, and gets imbricated with ‘scientific’ knowledge.
Paper short abstract:
Through an exploration of oral history, art exhibitions, and documentaries, this paper illuminates how residents of Berezovka, impacted by the Karachaganak oil and gas condensate field, perceive and navigate the complex narratives around their land's past, present, and future.
Paper long abstract:
Berezovka was a small village in Western Kazakhtan, located on the edge of the Karachaganak oil-and-gas field operated by Karachaganak Petroleum Operating consortium — that has been fined by the government for violations of environmental safety standards — within the 5000 metres radius of the Sanitary Protection Zone. Prompted by concerns regarding chronic health problems arising from gas emissions and the appearance of multiple sinkholes near their houses, residents initiated efforts to be relocated to a safe place in the 2000s, and local environmental organisations, with the support of Crude Accountability, advocated for urgent measures to address the issues. During 2015-2018, the villagers were relocated following a mass poisoning of children incident in 2014. As a precautionary measure, the houses in Berezovka were demolished to discourage individuals from returning.
This paper approaches the complexities of territories by looking at a case where various risks converge, at a place that encountered dangers manifesting both below and above the ground — dangers, sometimes subtle, sometimes evident, that traverse vertically and horizontally and penetrate different layers. It aims to unravel how individuals navigate the histories of their altered land, and make sense of the present, that consist of many unresolved political, social and emotional issues related to fears, grief and trust, but also to expertise and production of knowledge. By examining several documentaries (produced by environmental organisations and locals), interviews, and art exhibitions, this paper sheds light on the interconnected narratives of environmental and social exploitation, as well as activism in Western Kazakhstan.