STS Underground - II: Subterranean Timescapes

Abstract

The panel brings together international scholars whose work addresses technologies, practices, and forms of knowledge related to the mining of minerals, groundwater and fossil fuels. Recent technological developments such as high-volume hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from shale, solar technologies that require rare earth metals, and even the pursuit of minerals found in asteroids have all been of interest to STS scholars, but have not typically been treated as an identifiable domain of research. This panel highlights the theoretical and topical commonalities as well as disagreements and debates that make the study of the underground a vibrant, emerging subfield of STS. Research includes a wide range of topics, including: research and development on extractive technologies, environmental health and grassroots activism, extraction and indigenous communities, climate change and the Anthropocene, historical perspectives on extractive industries, labor and workers’ rights, and mining and extraction infrastructures.

Individual Presentations

• Remembering and Imagining the Underground: Contested Timescapes in Mining Conflicts - Erik Kojola, Texas Christian University

• Chthonic Politics in Arkadia: Archaeological Pasts, Energy Futures, and Resource-Becoming - Nathaniel T Stanton, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - STS

• The Rise of Hyper-Speculation in Post-Conventional Energy Futures - Magdalena Kuchler, Uppsala University

• Strategic Ignorance and Politics of Time: How Expert Knowledge Framed Shale Gas Policies - Sebastien Chailleux, E2S UPPA

• Whence Came the Hydrocarbons? Life, Petroleum Origins, and Climate Futures - Sabrina Peric, University of Calgary

Session Organizers

• Jessica Mary Smith, Colorado School of Mines

• Abby Kinchy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Roopali Phadke, Macalester College