1. Subjectivity and space on extractive frontiers: Materiality, accumulation and politics.
- Author
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Frederiksen, Tomas
- Subjects
SPACE exploration ,SUBJECTIVITY ,DEVELOPING countries ,MINERAL industries ,PRACTICAL politics - Abstract
This paper uses the lenses of space and subjectivity to analyse the local impacts of large-scale metals mining on three extractive frontiers across the global South. Using insights around the role of the materiality of resource extraction in politics, the spatiality of power and subjectivity and the global nature of extractive industries, this paper draws on research across Ghana, Peru and Zambia to understand how patterns of action and impact, repeated across continents, reconfigure space and subjectivity. First, the paper outlines thinking on subjectivity, drawing on Foucault and Althusser and work on contemporary capitalism, colonialism, nature-society relations and frontiers. Second, three key areas where the presence and activities of extractive companies reshape spaces of subjectivity across extractive frontiers are explored: (1) material transformations, (2) dynamics of inclusion and exclusion and, (3) governance interventions which directly reshape the form and functioning of the state and local politics. The weighty presence of large-scale mining reconfigures the 'reality' and sense of place in the world of those living on extractive frontiers, profoundly altering subjectivity and shaping extractive subjects. The paper argues for the possibilities opened into understanding local processes and outcomes across globally connected extractive frontiers by examining space and subjectivities, highlighting insights into the complex, scalar and intersectional forms of power at work around mining operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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