Mette M High
Biographic Data
| ID | 137588 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mette M High |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mette M |
| FAMILY NAME | High |
| SIGNATURE | HIGH M M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of St Andrews |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5752-6810 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 180 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Resisting renewable energy transitions
This article examines how oil and gas industry participants in Colorado reflect on the potential energy mix of the future. At a time when innovation is a dominant trope that casts entrepreneurs as agents who create dreams and craft worlds, providing the materials, technologies, and processes needed to decarbonize energy systems, my interlocutors also position themselves as experienced innovators. For them, petromodernity is a techno-scientific ac…
Articulations of Ethics: Energy Worlds and Moral Selves
This chapter introduces the notion of ‘regimes of ethics’ to explore the diverse ways that ethics is articulated in corporate capitalism, particularly in industries that are involved in the extraction of natural resources such as oil and gas. I show how companies draw on corporate social responsibility frameworks as public-facing demonstrations of ethics for stakeholder engagement, while also generating greater company loyalty and pride among emp…
Utopias of Oil
At a time of a "private equity oil rush," this essay explores how oil industry entrepreneurs with ambitions of setting up their own oil-production companies are encouraged to "dream big"-yet are ultimately disciplined and let down-by private equity finance in the state of Colorado in the United States. Motivated by a desire to "do oil differently," these start-ups articulate utopian visions that draw on inequalities in extractive economies to pro…
Introduction
Growing anthropological research on energy provides critical explorations into the cross‐cultural ways in which people perceive and use this fundamental resource. We argue that two dominant frameworks animate that literature: a critique of corporate and state power, and advocacy for energy transitions to less carbon‐intensive futures. These frameworks have narrowed the ethical questions and perspectives that the discipline has considered in relat…
Projects of devotion
This essay considers how people working in the oil and gas industry in Colorado perceive their involvement in energy exploration in relation to broader practices of devotion, compassion, and outreach. I argue that although their energy projects may appear to merely echo companies’ formal promotional pitches, the oilfield and corporate actors’ own moral ambitions reveal more‐than‐human cosmoeconomic visions of oil's potentiality. This essay thus d…
A Question of Ethics
Addressing the intersections of economic opportunities and scriptural interpretation, this article examines how Buddhist monks involved in the Mongolian gold rush view the ethics of mining. Commonly regarded an act of theft and violence within Mahāyāna Buddhism, mining is locally subject to strong ethical denunciations. Drawing on historical connections and transnational devotional practices, the mining monks engage creatively with a method of me…
Fear and Fortune
Mongolia over the last decade has seen a substantial and ongoing gold rush. The widespread mining of gold looks at first glance to be a blessing for a desperately poor and largely pastoralist country where people's lives were disrupted by the end of the USSR and tens of millions of livestock were killed in devastating droughts in the early 2000s. Volatility and uncertainty as well as political and economic turmoil led many people to join the hope…
Exploring the anthropology of energy
Polluted money, polluted wealth
In Mongolia's gold rush economy, money has become such an emphatically localized and contentious object that its cash value cannot be presumed. Drawing on Mongolian notions of "polluted money," I argue that, in this context, cash value is determined not only by a banknote's status as legal tender but also by local understandings of its materiality. Confronted with the intense pollution that attaches to gold miners' money, shopkeepers change the f…
Cosmologies of freedom andBuddhist self-transformation in theMongolian gold rush
This article examines howMongolianBuddhist monks view the freedom they have experienced since the fall ofSoviet socialism in 1990. Whereas the anthropological literature on postsocialism tends to focus on political and economic transformations, I argue that contemporaryMongolian politics points to the coexistence and interdependence of human and nonhuman agents. The article highlights how, in the context of the country's current mining boom, post…
Book and Film Reviews
published
Rulers and rascals
This article examines the politics of gold mining in the Mongolian cultural region during the Qing period and today. By drawing on archival material and accounts by travellers of the period, the authors situate the current mining boom within its greater historical context. Since the exploration of gold has been surrounded by enduring notions of exclusivity and purity, the article shows how mining for gold has historically been closely related to …
Exploring the anthropology of energy
Introduction
Growing anthropological research on energy provides critical explorations into the cross‐cultural ways in which people perceive and use this fundamental resource. We argue that two dominant frameworks animate that literature: a critique of corporate and state power, and advocacy for energy transitions to less carbon‐intensive futures. These frameworks have narrowed the ethical questions and perspectives that the discipline has considered in relat…
Polluted money, polluted wealth
In Mongolia's gold rush economy, money has become such an emphatically localized and contentious object that its cash value cannot be presumed. Drawing on Mongolian notions of "polluted money," I argue that, in this context, cash value is determined not only by a banknote's status as legal tender but also by local understandings of its materiality. Confronted with the intense pollution that attaches to gold miners' money, shopkeepers change the f…
Projects of devotion
This essay considers how people working in the oil and gas industry in Colorado perceive their involvement in energy exploration in relation to broader practices of devotion, compassion, and outreach. I argue that although their energy projects may appear to merely echo companies’ formal promotional pitches, the oilfield and corporate actors’ own moral ambitions reveal more‐than‐human cosmoeconomic visions of oil's potentiality. This essay thus d…
A Question of Ethics
Addressing the intersections of economic opportunities and scriptural interpretation, this article examines how Buddhist monks involved in the Mongolian gold rush view the ethics of mining. Commonly regarded an act of theft and violence within Mahāyāna Buddhism, mining is locally subject to strong ethical denunciations. Drawing on historical connections and transnational devotional practices, the mining monks engage creatively with a method of me…
Rulers and rascals
This article examines the politics of gold mining in the Mongolian cultural region during the Qing period and today. By drawing on archival material and accounts by travellers of the period, the authors situate the current mining boom within its greater historical context. Since the exploration of gold has been surrounded by enduring notions of exclusivity and purity, the article shows how mining for gold has historically been closely related to …
Cosmologies of freedom andBuddhist self-transformation in theMongolian gold rush
This article examines howMongolianBuddhist monks view the freedom they have experienced since the fall ofSoviet socialism in 1990. Whereas the anthropological literature on postsocialism tends to focus on political and economic transformations, I argue that contemporaryMongolian politics points to the coexistence and interdependence of human and nonhuman agents. The article highlights how, in the context of the country's current mining boom, post…
Resisting renewable energy transitions
This article examines how oil and gas industry participants in Colorado reflect on the potential energy mix of the future. At a time when innovation is a dominant trope that casts entrepreneurs as agents who create dreams and craft worlds, providing the materials, technologies, and processes needed to decarbonize energy systems, my interlocutors also position themselves as experienced innovators. For them, petromodernity is a techno-scientific ac…
Utopias of Oil
At a time of a "private equity oil rush," this essay explores how oil industry entrepreneurs with ambitions of setting up their own oil-production companies are encouraged to "dream big"-yet are ultimately disciplined and let down-by private equity finance in the state of Colorado in the United States. Motivated by a desire to "do oil differently," these start-ups articulate utopian visions that draw on inequalities in extractive economies to pro…
Rulers and rascals
This article examines the politics of gold mining in the Mongolian cultural region during the Qing period and today. By drawing on archival material and accounts by travellers of the period, the authors situate the current mining boom within its greater historical context. Since the exploration of gold has been surrounded by enduring notions of exclusivity and purity, the article shows how mining for gold has historically been closely related to …
Book and Film Reviews
published
Polluted money, polluted wealth
In Mongolia's gold rush economy, money has become such an emphatically localized and contentious object that its cash value cannot be presumed. Drawing on Mongolian notions of "polluted money," I argue that, in this context, cash value is determined not only by a banknote's status as legal tender but also by local understandings of its materiality. Confronted with the intense pollution that attaches to gold miners' money, shopkeepers change the f…
Cosmologies of freedom andBuddhist self-transformation in theMongolian gold rush
This article examines howMongolianBuddhist monks view the freedom they have experienced since the fall ofSoviet socialism in 1990. Whereas the anthropological literature on postsocialism tends to focus on political and economic transformations, I argue that contemporaryMongolian politics points to the coexistence and interdependence of human and nonhuman agents. The article highlights how, in the context of the country's current mining boom, post…
Fear and Fortune
Mongolia over the last decade has seen a substantial and ongoing gold rush. The widespread mining of gold looks at first glance to be a blessing for a desperately poor and largely pastoralist country where people's lives were disrupted by the end of the USSR and tens of millions of livestock were killed in devastating droughts in the early 2000s. Volatility and uncertainty as well as political and economic turmoil led many people to join the hope…
Exploring the anthropology of energy
A Question of Ethics
Addressing the intersections of economic opportunities and scriptural interpretation, this article examines how Buddhist monks involved in the Mongolian gold rush view the ethics of mining. Commonly regarded an act of theft and violence within Mahāyāna Buddhism, mining is locally subject to strong ethical denunciations. Drawing on historical connections and transnational devotional practices, the mining monks engage creatively with a method of me…
Introduction
Growing anthropological research on energy provides critical explorations into the cross‐cultural ways in which people perceive and use this fundamental resource. We argue that two dominant frameworks animate that literature: a critique of corporate and state power, and advocacy for energy transitions to less carbon‐intensive futures. These frameworks have narrowed the ethical questions and perspectives that the discipline has considered in relat…
Projects of devotion
This essay considers how people working in the oil and gas industry in Colorado perceive their involvement in energy exploration in relation to broader practices of devotion, compassion, and outreach. I argue that although their energy projects may appear to merely echo companies’ formal promotional pitches, the oilfield and corporate actors’ own moral ambitions reveal more‐than‐human cosmoeconomic visions of oil's potentiality. This essay thus d…
Articulations of Ethics: Energy Worlds and Moral Selves
This chapter introduces the notion of ‘regimes of ethics’ to explore the diverse ways that ethics is articulated in corporate capitalism, particularly in industries that are involved in the extraction of natural resources such as oil and gas. I show how companies draw on corporate social responsibility frameworks as public-facing demonstrations of ethics for stakeholder engagement, while also generating greater company loyalty and pride among emp…
Utopias of Oil
At a time of a "private equity oil rush," this essay explores how oil industry entrepreneurs with ambitions of setting up their own oil-production companies are encouraged to "dream big"-yet are ultimately disciplined and let down-by private equity finance in the state of Colorado in the United States. Motivated by a desire to "do oil differently," these start-ups articulate utopian visions that draw on inequalities in extractive economies to pro…
Resisting renewable energy transitions
This article examines how oil and gas industry participants in Colorado reflect on the potential energy mix of the future. At a time when innovation is a dominant trope that casts entrepreneurs as agents who create dreams and craft worlds, providing the materials, technologies, and processes needed to decarbonize energy systems, my interlocutors also position themselves as experienced innovators. For them, petromodernity is a techno-scientific ac…
Sociology (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (5 works) · Environmental ethics (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Engineering (4 works)