Extracting Identities and Value from Nature: Power, Culture, and Knowledge in the Contested Politics of Mining
2018-07
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Extracting Identities and Value from Nature: Power, Culture, and Knowledge in the Contested Politics of Mining
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2018-07
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Global capitalism’s accelerating consumption of natural resources and new technologies are driving development of new riskier forms and sites of extraction. These developments create conflicts around socio-ecological hazards and perceived trade-offs between economic growth and environmental protection. I take proposed copper-nickel mines in Northern Minnesota as an illustrative case study of the contentious politics that arise around ecological risks, environmental governance and land-use decisions. Northern Minnesota is an emblematic case of the tensions around resource use in a rural mining region, but also has a distinct history of progressive politics and militant unionism, American Indian sovereignty, and ethos of environmentalism. I examine how class and place-based identities and collective memories inform how people make sense of environmental hazards and construct different visions for the future. I investigate how social actors (unions, mining companies, environmentalists, American India Tribes and local politicians) legitimize their positions, create competing truth claims, and engage in environmental decision-making. I situate these discourses and actions within the particular socio-ecological histories of Northern Minnesota and broader relations of power and political-economic and ideological processes. I contribute to environmental and natural resource sociology by integrating interdisciplinary theories of political ecology to address the interconnections between class, race, and indigeneity in environmental governance.
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University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. 2018. Major: Sociology. Advisors: David Pellow, Rachel Schurman. 1 computer file (PDF); 322 pages.
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Kojola, Erik. (2018). Extracting Identities and Value from Nature: Power, Culture, and Knowledge in the Contested Politics of Mining. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/200316.
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