A curation of articles, essays, book reviews and interviews on critical geographical concerns.
This paper is an invitation to view tailings – the most prominent byproduct generated by mining activity – as more than their usual incarnation as waste, object of governance by waste management programs. In doing so, it applies Elizabeth Povinelli’s notions about geontopower/geontologies to analyze the practices devoted to managing the tailings produced by Mina El Teniente, a large copper mine located in central Chile. From this framework, the mine’s tailings impoundment are enacted as both a “dragon” and a “trickster”, entities endowed with a monstrous vitality that openly challenges the mining industry’s usual geontologies, which are based on understanding impoundments as docile nonliving deserts very much open to capitalist exploitation/forgetting. On the contrary, the dragon/trickster enacts a geontology in which human beings appear as ultimately unable to truly control nonliving entities, and depend only on their goodwill to avoid environmental disaster. The acceptance of such a geontology, as will be explored in the conclusions, challenges us to develop a geo-teratology, or a set of alternative political and ethical commitments we should devise in order to start better living with the monstrous geontologies of mining waste.
Though not an exhaustive list, these are many of the main areas we cover.