Mining hopes in Andalusian wastelands: Promises and materiality of greened extraction

Pour la prochaine séance du séminaire Sens écologique(s), nous accueillons Doris Buu Sao, maîtresse de conférences à l’Université de Lille, rattachée au CERAPS le mercredi 22 novembre de 16h à 18h, en salle CS 16.

Le séminaire est ouvert à tout.e.s sur inscription (obligatoire) en remplissant le lien suivant: https://forms.gle/dxiDy8VeWdC4LvRUA

Titre de l’intervention :

“Mining hopes in Andalusian wastelands: Promises and materiality of greened extraction“

Résumé :

Through discourses of “sustainable”, “green” or “climate-smart mining”, public and private actors of the sector justify the (re)opening of metallic mines in some rural areas of Europe. The Southern region of Andalusia, in Spain, is a pioneer territory in this regard. There, mining revival appears as a paradoxical remedy to the economic but also ecological crisis, despite the regional history of mining environmental disasters and of deep social crisis caused by economic bubbles. How are those new mines made desirable in a context where the local economic, social, and environmental history could put these projects at risk?

The article navigates mining revival in Andalusia, from urban centers to mining installations, envisioning this process as a combination of promises and material practices. It analyzes the multiple expectations and activities that support mining redeployment, from above and from below. Ethnography helps to unravel the plurality of social conditions that make possible the materialization of extractive promises into industrial activities: beyond top-down impositions, the article argues that it depends on local expectations of people on the frontline of extraction. At the same time, those expectations are partly shaped by corporate and public policy. People’s hopes can then be thought of as being “mined”: aspirations, desires, anxieties are extracted from societies and processed through mediatic discourses, political speeches, and corporate practices. However, just like ores can oppose physical resistance to extraction due to their biophysical characteristics, local aspirations and hopes may come into conflict with mining reality.

Présentation et échanges en français, texte en anglais.