[csaa-forum] Transformations Journal: Call for Papers -- Issue 33: Mineral Transformation and Resource Extraction: Pasts, Presents and Futures

[Warwick Mules]

Transformations Journal: Call for Papers
 
Issue 33: Mineral Transformation and Resource Extraction: Pasts, Presents
and Futures
 
Editors: Grayson Cooke and Sally Babidge
 
 
Mineral transformation and resource extraction generate some of the most
complex environmental, social and economic problems facing humankind and the
planet today.
 
In one way or another, resource extraction and mineral transformation are
central to human existence. Like all biological organisms, we are mineral
and matter transformers, on very small and very large scales. Mammals
breathe oxygen and emit carbon dioxide, and build mass through minerals
ingested in food; as Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky noted, we are
walking, talking minerals. Plants build mass by extracting carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere, which releases oxygen. The carbon, nitrogen and water
cycles surround and condition these processes, forming the principles which
govern all life on earth.
 
Humans are increasingly recognised as powerful actors in these cycles, with
some humans more implicated than others. Fossil fuel extraction for energy
and manufacturing releases carbon dioxide and methane, heating up the
planet. The use of nitrogen fertilizers has dramatically increased the
amount of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere. Our
built environment is grounded in resource extraction; silica for glass, sand
for concrete, iron ore for steel. The shifting, expanding or degrading lives
of extracted materials may also affect us in ways we do not immediately
recognise.
 
Extractive processes and industries are celebrated as engines of some
national economies and have a host of negative consequences; environmental
degradation, groundwater contamination, market speculation and manipulation,
conflict with Indigenous peoples and farming communities over social and
territorial impacts ­ to name but a few. Given the triumphalism of what
humanity has achieved with resources and the litany of problems associated
with their extraction, the subject generates profound ambivalence. And
alongside the practicalities of transitioning to renewable and sustainable
forms of energy and resource use, questions arise about what it takes for
governments and corporations to support and encourage such a transition.
 
This issue of Transformations asks what researchers in the Humanities, Arts
and Social Sciences (HASS) are contributing to the debates and politics of
resource transformation and extraction. What are the many pasts, presents
and futures of resource extraction? How are researchers investigating these
phenomena? What alternatives can we uncover and imagine? How do creative
responses to resource extraction figure in this debate?
 
We invite submissions in the areas of critical and cultural studies, media
studies, anthropology and social science, science and technology studies,
and creative arts research. Possible topics include but are not limited to:
 
-         Vibrant matter, geophilosophy and mineralization; Manuel de Landa
and Jane Bennett
-         Slow moving catastrophes: the temporalities of mineral extraction
-         Life in mining towns or post-mining places; sociologies and
cultures of mining
-         Indigenous peoples¹ rights and relations with extraction
industries
-         Anti-mining activism & landscapes of protest
-         The mineral underpinnings of energy production
-         Exploring material and immaterial extractive effects
-         The manufactured landscapes of the Anthropocene; Edward Burtynsky
and creative responses to resource extraction
-         Rare earth minerals and new technologies; media archaeologies
-         Lithium mining and other Œgreen¹ energy development
 
 
>>> Abstracts (200-400 words) are due 10th February 2019, with a view to submit
articles by 31st May 2019.
>>> Abstracts should be forwarded to: editor at transformationsjournal.org
>>> View Transformations online: http://www.transformationsjournal.org
<http://www.transformationsjournal.org/> 
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