Extractive Labor in Extraglobal Geographies
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Abstract
Contemporary space activities rely on hardware, and hardware is comprised of minerals, metals, and materials wrested from the Earth by human labor. This embeds the extraglobal geographies in extractive supply chains and labour regimes on Earth, and shapes the manner in which the immensity of the cosmos is understood and engaged by diverse publics. Drawing on several examples from around the world, this talk presents a conceptual architecture for centering the politics of labor and land use in outer space geographies, while also reflexively examining the potential epistemic violence of using extractivism as a spatial analytic to link Earthly and outer space geographies.
Biography
Dr. Julie Michelle Klinger (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware, and a member of the International Standards Organization Technical Advisory Group 298: Rare Earth Supply Chain Transparency and Traceability. Dr. Klinger and her research team are supported by the National Science Foundation, The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Ford Foundation to conduct grounded yet global-scope research on competing uses for energy-transition metals, materials, and infrastructures. She has published numerous articles on rare earth elements, natural resource use, environmental politics, and outer space, including the award-winning 2018 book Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley.
