STS Underground - III: Sensing the Underground

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

• If You Smell Something, Say Something!: Sensing Underground Gas Leaks in Environmental Justice Organizing - Kai Anthony Bosworth, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Technics and Tactics of Anti-Pipeline Movements: Assessing Critical Technical Engagements with Oil and Gas Pipeline Projects - Kirk Jalbert, Arizona State University

• Know, Measure, and Control: Epistemic and Technopolitical Practices in the Global Project to Eliminate Mercury Use in Artisanal Gold Mining - Sebastian Rubiano-Galvis, University of California, Berkeley

Session Organizers

• Jessica Mary Smith, Colorado School of Mines

• Abby Kinchy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Roopali Phadke, Macalester College