Deep-Sea Mining
The Shape-Shifting Imaginaries at the New Extractivist Frontier
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2300373 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Håkon Larsen (0009-0003-5212-4048) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 315-341 |
| Publication date | 2024-12-11 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Public Anthropologist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2589-1707 • E-ISSN: 2589-1715 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/25891715-bja10061 |
| OpenAlex | W4405355916 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
Narratives of extraction are, in essence, speculations about imagined futures. This article addresses the emerging global phenomenon of deep-sea mining by examining how industry actors engage in rituals of negation to construct, negotiate, and reproduce scenarios of autonomous mineral extraction to curtail concerns over environmental risk. Being hailed as a redeeming frontier of capitalist growth in a post-carbon world, the deep ocean is prefigured as a site for sustainable exploitation by ultimately being fabricated as a lifeless, and socio-ecological void. First, the article considers the discursive elements underlying virtual scenarios of deep-sea mining, ethnographically exploring how shape-shifting imaginaries of technology unfold within corporate conferences in Norway. Second, and drawing connections to the Pacific, the article discusses how "gentle mineral extractions" are not only asserted as a technical endeavor of accumulation, but as claims of emancipation by proponents arguing deep-sea mining may lead to broader social labor justice
Boom · Business · Emancipation · Frontier · Futures contract · Narrative · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social justice · Sociology · Computer Science · Law · Mining and Resource Management · Geology · Oceanography
Anthropologists Not Welcome
Energy transition materials, climate knowledge, and the imagined supply chain
Is Deep-Sea Mining the New “Green Frontier”? A Corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis of Arguments on the Climate Crisis and Deep-Sea Mining in the Pacific
Orthofeudalism
Accelerating aquaculture
The future of mining or mining the future? Mapping corporate deep sea mining discourses
The emerging political economy of deep-sea mining
| Citations per year | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2027 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |