[Geogwaste] Nudging this list!

[Freyja Knapp]

Hello geographers of waste -

It's been a long time since someone posted here and in an act of shameless
self-promotion, I am reviving it temporarily to share a new publication
just out in Environment and Planning A (should you wish to read and you do
not have access to the journal, I can send a pdf).

I hope all are well and I would love to see what other's have been
publishing too!  The Discard Studies blog has been a great source of new
pubs, but I'm sure there are others.  Please feel free to share back.

Best,

Freyja


   - Freyja L Knapp

The birth of the flexible mine: Changing geographies of mining and the
e-waste commodity frontier Environment and Planning A 0308518X16652398, first
published on May 28, 2016 as doi:10.1177/0308518X16652398Abstract

Mining companies, in recent decades, have been changing how they source and
refine ores by seeking metal-bearing wastes to be smelted alongside
“traditional” mining concentrates. I propose the term “flexible mine” to
describe this expansion of ore supply chains, and I demonstrate how it
operates through multiple registers of flexibility: spatial, temporal, and
interpretational. The flexible mine is both a “widening” and a “deepening”
commodity frontier for the mining industry promising a disarticulation from
geophysical processes and, by extension, mining country geopolitics. The
organizational and technical changes associated with mining above-ground
ores seem to suggest a new phenomenon, wholly different than traditional
mining and refining. Instead, however, the mining of waste streams blurs
the boundaries between extraction, production, manufacturing, consumption,
and disposal. Further, the flexible mine challenges the distinction between
urban and non, arguing against relying on too-familiar binaries in
geographic scholarship. I highlight how these registers of flexibility
address three problems in below-ground mining (geospatial fixity, resource
scarcity, and environmental effects) and also create new governance
challenges in regulating extractive industries.


-- 
Freyja Knapp, MLA
Designated Emphases, Science and Technology Studies
<http://cstms.berkeley.edu> & Global Metropolitan Studies
<http://metrostudies.berkeley.edu>
Fellow, Berkeley Connect
<http://www.berkeleyconnect.berkeley.edu/departments/espm>
PhD Candidate, Dept of Environmental Science, Policy & Management
University of California, Berkeley
email: freyja (at) berkeley (dot) edu
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