In Residual Governance, Gabrielle Hecht dives into the wastes of gold and uranium mining in South... more In Residual Governance, Gabrielle Hecht dives into the wastes of gold and uranium mining in South Africa to explore how communities, experts, and artists fight for infrastructural and environmental justice. Hecht outlines how mining in South Africa is a prime example of what she theorizes as residual governance—the governance of waste and discard, governance that is purposefully inefficient, and governance that treats people and places as waste and wastelands. She centers the voices of people who resist residual governance and the harms of toxic mining waste to highlight how mining's centrality to South African history reveals the links between race, capitalism, the state, and the environment. In this way, Hecht shows how the history of mining in South Africa and the resistance to residual governance and environmental degradation is a planetary story: the underlying logic of residual governance lies at the heart of contemporary global racial capitalism and is a major accelerant of the Anthropocene.
The hidden history of African uranium and what it means—for a state, an object, an industry, a wo... more The hidden history of African uranium and what it means—for a state, an object, an industry, a workplace—to be “nuclear.”
Uranium from Africa has long been a major source of fuel for nuclear power and atomic weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In 2003, after the infamous “yellow cake from Niger,” Africa suddenly became notorious as a source of uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. But did that admit Niger, or any of Africa's other uranium-producing countries, to the select society of nuclear states? Does uranium itself count as a nuclear thing? This book probes the question of what it means for something—a state, an object, an industry, a workplace—to be “nuclear.”
It shows that questions about being nuclear lie at the heart of today's global nuclear order and the relationships between “developing nations” (often former colonies) and “nuclear powers” (often former colonizers). The book enters African nuclear worlds, focusing on miners and the occupational hazard of radiation exposure. Could a mine be a nuclear workplace if (as in some South African mines) its radiation levels went undetected and unmeasured? This book is the first to put Africa in the nuclear world, and the nuclear world in Africa, and in so doing remakes our understanding of the nuclear age.
Este artículo ofrece una crítica transdiciplinaria a la abstracción capitalista de la “carbono-ne... more Este artículo ofrece una crítica transdiciplinaria a la abstracción capitalista de la “carbono-neutralidad” a partir de un análisis situado de la producción de energía para la gran minería de cobre y, recientemente, también de litio en la ciudad de Tocopilla (norte de Chile). Al examinar las transformaciones sociales y materiales gatilladas por la producción de energía para la gran minería durante el siglo XX, este trabajo problematiza dicha neutralidad demostrando cómo la reducción de emisiones corporativas de la gran minería en Chile opera a través de la producción de omisiones de carbón, a saber, a través de la omisión de los sedimentos tóxicos producidos por la combustión de varios combustibles que han generado lo que llamamos cenizas del Antropoceno. Para visualizar estos sedimentos, proponemos experimentar con una estratigrafía tóxica situada que revela los procesos históricos que precedieron la acumulación de cenizas sobre los sedimentos cuaternarios del acantilado costero, y que también explora los efectos actuales y futuros de la interacción entre estas capas. En última instancia, nuestro análisis situado en Tocopilla muestra cómo la carbono-neutralidad minera funciona como una abstracción con aspiraciones capitalistas que, al proponer discursivamente el desarrollo de transiciones energéticas, omite las transformaciones materiales y tóxicas desencadenadas por transiciones mineras.
L’extraction industrielle met la Terre sens dessus dessous, augmentant massivement la quantité, l... more L’extraction industrielle met la Terre sens dessus dessous, augmentant massivement la quantité, la dispersion et la durabilité des déchets produits dans le monde. Les minéraux africains ont joué un rôle particulièrement important dans cette dynamique, en étant simultanément moteurs de et produits dans la violence, y compris la violence sourde des dommages environnementaux et du capitalisme racial. Cet article explore ces processus en étudiant deux zones en proie à des résidus toxiques particulièrement nocifs: la mégapole de Johannesburg, Soweto, et les townships environnants en Afrique du Sud, et des agglomérations urbaines d’Afrique de l’Ouest.
Industrial extraction is turning the Earth inside out, massively increasing the quantity, extent, and durability of waste material around the world. African minerals have played a particularly important role in this dynamic, simultaneously serving as both a source and a product of violence, including the slow violence of environmental degradation and racial capitalism. This article explores these processes by surveying two zones plagued by particularly intense toxic residues: the megalopolis of Johannesburg, Soweto, and the surrounding townships, and urban agglomerations in West Africa.
The question is not whether an accident of Chernobyl’s gravity can happen elsewhere, but how to p... more The question is not whether an accident of Chernobyl’s gravity can happen elsewhere, but how to prepare for the consequences when it does....
The Anthropocene feels different depending on where you are -- too often, the 'we' of the world i... more The Anthropocene feels different depending on where you are -- too often, the 'we' of the world is white and Western.
How can we incorporate humanist critiques of the Anthropocene while harnessing the notion’s poten... more How can we incorporate humanist critiques of the Anthropocene while harnessing the notion’s potential for challenging political imagination? Placing the Anthropocene offers one way forward; the notion of an African Anthropocene offers a productive paradox that holds planetary temporality and specific human lives in a single frame. Navigating the Anthropocene from Africa requires attending to scale both as an analytic and an actor category. In order to do so, this essay proposes the notion of interscalar vehicles: objects and modes of analysis that permit scholars and their subjects to move simultaneously through deep time and human time, through geological space and political space. This essay discusses the creation and destruction of value/waste and pasts/futures around a uranium mine in Mounana, Gabon, to unpack the political, ethical, epistemological, and affective dimensions of interscalar vehicles and their violent Anthropocenic implications
This brief think piece examines mine waste in South Africa, as an entry point into understanding ... more This brief think piece examines mine waste in South Africa, as an entry point into understanding residual governance (governance of residues, governance as afterthought, governance that leaves people residual) in the African Anthropocene.
In Residual Governance, Gabrielle Hecht dives into the wastes of gold and uranium mining in South... more In Residual Governance, Gabrielle Hecht dives into the wastes of gold and uranium mining in South Africa to explore how communities, experts, and artists fight for infrastructural and environmental justice. Hecht outlines how mining in South Africa is a prime example of what she theorizes as residual governance—the governance of waste and discard, governance that is purposefully inefficient, and governance that treats people and places as waste and wastelands. She centers the voices of people who resist residual governance and the harms of toxic mining waste to highlight how mining's centrality to South African history reveals the links between race, capitalism, the state, and the environment. In this way, Hecht shows how the history of mining in South Africa and the resistance to residual governance and environmental degradation is a planetary story: the underlying logic of residual governance lies at the heart of contemporary global racial capitalism and is a major accelerant of the Anthropocene.
The hidden history of African uranium and what it means—for a state, an object, an industry, a wo... more The hidden history of African uranium and what it means—for a state, an object, an industry, a workplace—to be “nuclear.”
Uranium from Africa has long been a major source of fuel for nuclear power and atomic weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In 2003, after the infamous “yellow cake from Niger,” Africa suddenly became notorious as a source of uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. But did that admit Niger, or any of Africa's other uranium-producing countries, to the select society of nuclear states? Does uranium itself count as a nuclear thing? This book probes the question of what it means for something—a state, an object, an industry, a workplace—to be “nuclear.”
It shows that questions about being nuclear lie at the heart of today's global nuclear order and the relationships between “developing nations” (often former colonies) and “nuclear powers” (often former colonizers). The book enters African nuclear worlds, focusing on miners and the occupational hazard of radiation exposure. Could a mine be a nuclear workplace if (as in some South African mines) its radiation levels went undetected and unmeasured? This book is the first to put Africa in the nuclear world, and the nuclear world in Africa, and in so doing remakes our understanding of the nuclear age.
Este artículo ofrece una crítica transdiciplinaria a la abstracción capitalista de la “carbono-ne... more Este artículo ofrece una crítica transdiciplinaria a la abstracción capitalista de la “carbono-neutralidad” a partir de un análisis situado de la producción de energía para la gran minería de cobre y, recientemente, también de litio en la ciudad de Tocopilla (norte de Chile). Al examinar las transformaciones sociales y materiales gatilladas por la producción de energía para la gran minería durante el siglo XX, este trabajo problematiza dicha neutralidad demostrando cómo la reducción de emisiones corporativas de la gran minería en Chile opera a través de la producción de omisiones de carbón, a saber, a través de la omisión de los sedimentos tóxicos producidos por la combustión de varios combustibles que han generado lo que llamamos cenizas del Antropoceno. Para visualizar estos sedimentos, proponemos experimentar con una estratigrafía tóxica situada que revela los procesos históricos que precedieron la acumulación de cenizas sobre los sedimentos cuaternarios del acantilado costero, y que también explora los efectos actuales y futuros de la interacción entre estas capas. En última instancia, nuestro análisis situado en Tocopilla muestra cómo la carbono-neutralidad minera funciona como una abstracción con aspiraciones capitalistas que, al proponer discursivamente el desarrollo de transiciones energéticas, omite las transformaciones materiales y tóxicas desencadenadas por transiciones mineras.
L’extraction industrielle met la Terre sens dessus dessous, augmentant massivement la quantité, l... more L’extraction industrielle met la Terre sens dessus dessous, augmentant massivement la quantité, la dispersion et la durabilité des déchets produits dans le monde. Les minéraux africains ont joué un rôle particulièrement important dans cette dynamique, en étant simultanément moteurs de et produits dans la violence, y compris la violence sourde des dommages environnementaux et du capitalisme racial. Cet article explore ces processus en étudiant deux zones en proie à des résidus toxiques particulièrement nocifs: la mégapole de Johannesburg, Soweto, et les townships environnants en Afrique du Sud, et des agglomérations urbaines d’Afrique de l’Ouest.
Industrial extraction is turning the Earth inside out, massively increasing the quantity, extent, and durability of waste material around the world. African minerals have played a particularly important role in this dynamic, simultaneously serving as both a source and a product of violence, including the slow violence of environmental degradation and racial capitalism. This article explores these processes by surveying two zones plagued by particularly intense toxic residues: the megalopolis of Johannesburg, Soweto, and the surrounding townships, and urban agglomerations in West Africa.
The question is not whether an accident of Chernobyl’s gravity can happen elsewhere, but how to p... more The question is not whether an accident of Chernobyl’s gravity can happen elsewhere, but how to prepare for the consequences when it does....
The Anthropocene feels different depending on where you are -- too often, the 'we' of the world i... more The Anthropocene feels different depending on where you are -- too often, the 'we' of the world is white and Western.
How can we incorporate humanist critiques of the Anthropocene while harnessing the notion’s poten... more How can we incorporate humanist critiques of the Anthropocene while harnessing the notion’s potential for challenging political imagination? Placing the Anthropocene offers one way forward; the notion of an African Anthropocene offers a productive paradox that holds planetary temporality and specific human lives in a single frame. Navigating the Anthropocene from Africa requires attending to scale both as an analytic and an actor category. In order to do so, this essay proposes the notion of interscalar vehicles: objects and modes of analysis that permit scholars and their subjects to move simultaneously through deep time and human time, through geological space and political space. This essay discusses the creation and destruction of value/waste and pasts/futures around a uranium mine in Mounana, Gabon, to unpack the political, ethical, epistemological, and affective dimensions of interscalar vehicles and their violent Anthropocenic implications
This brief think piece examines mine waste in South Africa, as an entry point into understanding ... more This brief think piece examines mine waste in South Africa, as an entry point into understanding residual governance (governance of residues, governance as afterthought, governance that leaves people residual) in the African Anthropocene.
“Invisible Production and the Production of Invisibility: Cleaning, Maintenance, and Mining in th... more “Invisible Production and the Production of Invisibility: Cleaning, Maintenance, and Mining in the Nuclear Sector,” Daniel Kleinman and Kelly Moore, eds., Handbook on Science, Technology and Society (Routledge, 2014): 346-361.
Short adventures into our planet's toxic sensorium, by Africanists and some of their scholarly ki... more Short adventures into our planet's toxic sensorium, by Africanists and some of their scholarly kin. Herewith, the introduction. Better viewing and weekly posts at http://somatosphere.net/toxicity.
In a fittingly bizarre intro for these political times, Cymene and Dominic share weird fantasies ... more In a fittingly bizarre intro for these political times, Cymene and Dominic share weird fantasies and actual plans for resistance. We then (11:57) welcome to the podcast renowned historian and ethnographer of nuclear energy, Gabrielle Hecht from the University of Michigan, author of Being Nuclear and The Radiance of France (MIT Press). Gabrielle tells us why she first became interested in nuclear power growing up in Reagan's Cold War. We compare fears of nuclear war then and now and explore different historical constructions of " the nuclear " more generally. We talk about her concept of " toxic infrastructure " and how it can apply to places like Flint, Michigan. Gabrielle then explains how France became the country in the world most reliant upon nuclear energy for its electricity and why the French nuclear industry is in now in such a state of panic. We talk about why nuclear energy hasn't lost its utopianism—including as a climate change fix —but why we think the nuclear solution to global warming is a red herring. We turn to Fukushima and Gabrielle reminds us that it's also important to pay attention to the less spectacular but more common environmental and human impacts of using nuclear fuel, including the fate of people who clean reactors under normal and catastrophic conditions. We discuss uranium mining in Africa and the struggles miners have fought to have their " biological citizenship " recognized by their governments. That leads us to talk about the real costs of nuclear energy. And we close on Gabrielle's latest work on toxicity and what she calls the African Anthropocene. Hang in there, everyone, be kind to yourselves and stay strong for the long run of resistance.
In the following dialogue, we discuss and critique Peter Haff's concept of the "technosphere" (20... more In the following dialogue, we discuss and critique Peter Haff's concept of the "technosphere" (2013, 2014). We wrote this for students in our seminar at the 2016 Anthropocene Campus: The Technosphere Edition, sponsored by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. It’s intended as a pedagogical tool, not a formal publication. Read at your own risk.
Conventional approaches to nuclear security focus on high-level diplomacy, projections of atomic ... more Conventional approaches to nuclear security focus on high-level diplomacy, projections of atomic weapons capacity, and doomsday scenarios that imagine what would happen if country X were to obtain nuclear weapons, or country Y were to detonate one in wartime. Yet the pursuit of nuclear weapons — and nuclear power — has already caused significant health and environmental harm in frontline communities, such as those living and working at or near nuclear test sites, production facilities, uranium mines, and laboratories. A recent essay in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists notes that "the scope of suffering among these frontline communities...is shocking. A recent study very roughly estimates that atmospheric nuclear testing led to 340,000 to 460,000 premature deaths between 1951 and 1973. The US government has estimated that roughly 200,000 armed service personnel were involved in nuclear weapons tests, though others put that number as high as 400,000. The 67 nuclear tests conducted in the Marshall Islands, in total, had the equivalent power of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs exploded every single day for 12 years." Yet students have had few opportunities to grapple with how this history relates to present day challenges, including here in the Bay Area – let alone to do so in collaboration with communities experiencing those impacts.
The course examines the hidden nuclear history of the Bay Area, focusing primarily on San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood and the adjacent Hunters Point Shipyard, a Navy base where ships used in the Marshall Islands atomic tests were returned to be “decontaminated,” a process that ended up spreading radiological contamination into neighborhoods and waterways. Students learn about how these legacies are connected to histories of the nuclear age elsewhere in the world, including nuclear test sites in the Pacific. The course guides students through community-engaged research on an aspect of Bay Area nuclear history, based on primary sources that range from archives to oral histories. A key aspect of the course is its collaboration with the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates (BVHPCA), a group that works to address the toxic legacy of the shipyard – and other industrial activities – for Bayview residents.
How do technologies and material assemblages perform power? How are their designs and uses shaped... more How do technologies and material assemblages perform power? How are their designs and uses shaped by social, cultural, and political dynamics? How do they shape those dynamics? The course draws on an interdisciplinary body of literature in humanities and social science, mixing theoretical material with more empirically oriented studies, and including a mix of classics and new scholarship.
The study of infrastructure by the humanists and social scientists was incubated some twenty year... more The study of infrastructure by the humanists and social scientists was incubated some twenty years ago in the field of STS (science and technology studies). Interest in infrastructure has ballooned since then, with STS scholars entering into conversation with area studies, post/colonial studies, and other scholarship on the “Global South.” These conversations have produced dramatic new understandings of what “infrastructures” are, how to theorize them, and how to analyze them as conduits of social and political power. This course offers a graduate-level introduction to these conversations, drawing primarily on works from STS, anthropology, history, geography, and (to a lesser extent) architecture & urban studies.
" Africa " has been repeatedly portrayed as a continent lacking "technology. " Such depictions re... more " Africa " has been repeatedly portrayed as a continent lacking "technology. " Such depictions reflect politics and cultures not only of colonial domination, but also of technology. This course explores ways in which African histories have been shaped by and through technological activities, and ways in which African perspectives shed light on technological change. We will probe the nature and meaning of technological knowledge in African settings. We will pay attention to technopolitical geographies, sometimes focusing on tightly circumscribed geographical regions, and other times situating localities in larger regional, national, continental, or global networks. We will discuss the ways in which technologies mediate, represent, or perform power (for example, by focusing on the instruments of mobility, manipulations of human bodies, or the deployment of expertise). We shall examine the role of infrastructures and experts in creating and sustaining networks, and also discuss what happened when those networks – or the technologies they involved, or the natural orders they organized – broke down. The course focuses mainly on the colonial and postcolonial periods, proceeding thematically rather than chronologically. Drawing primarily from the disciplines of history, anthropology, and geography, the reading & viewing list focuses on recent scholarship, along with a few classic texts and documentary films.
The course examines the hidden nuclear history of the Bay Area, focusing primarily on Hunters Poi... more The course examines the hidden nuclear history of the Bay Area, focusing primarily on Hunters Point Shipyard, a Navy base in San Francisco where ships used in the Marshall Islands atomic tests were returned to be “decontaminated,” a process that ended up spreading radiological contamination into neighborhoods and waterways. Students learn about how these legacies are connected to histories of the nuclear age elsewhere in the world, such as nuclear test sites in the Pacific, uranium mines in Africa, and more. The course guides students through an original research project on an aspect of Bay Area nuclear history, based on primary sources that range from archives to oral histories. An important aspect of the course is its collaboration with the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates (BVHPCA), a group that works to address the toxic legacy of the shipyard – and other industrial activities – for Bayview residents.
Trashed! explores the history of waste since the 19th century. We will trace how garbage – the ac... more Trashed! explores the history of waste since the 19th century. We will trace how garbage – the actual stuff that humans discard – has changed along with methods of production, distribution and consumption. We will think about waste politics and garbage culture. We will examine how waste shapes societies, how it is managed, what roles it plays in different economies, how it integrates into people's everyday lives, and how it fits into their value systems. Most importantly, we explore how trash connects and divides people in different parts of an expanding and constricting world. Students are expected to read primary and secondary sources, actively participate in class discussions, and complete regular writing assignments. But we are also going to get our hands dirty! This course invites you to use your analytical skills and your creativity to make tangible connections between global, local, and public history. Since we believe that the materiality of garbage is of profound significance, this course includes active, explorative learning. We will touch stuff, talk to people, and go places.
The Anthropocene: a new age, in which humans have become a geological force. Its signs are everyw... more The Anthropocene: a new age, in which humans have become a geological force. Its signs are everywhere: warming climate, toxins in food chains, desolate landscapes left by resource extraction. But when did this age begin? The dawn of agriculture? The industrial revolution? The advent of nuclear weapons and the invention of plastic? And how did it unfold? This course offers a historical field guide to the Anthropocene, its planetary transformations, and the raging debates about its origins and manifestations.
L’extraction industrielle met la Terre sens dessus dessous, augmentant massivement la quantité, l... more L’extraction industrielle met la Terre sens dessus dessous, augmentant massivement la quantité, la dispersion et la durabilité des déchets produits dans le monde. Les minéraux africains ont joué un rôle particulièrement important dans cette dynamique, en étant simultanément moteurs de et produits dans la violence, y compris la violence sourde des dommages environnementaux et du capitalisme racial. Cet article explore ces processus en étudiant deux zones en proie a des résidus toxiques particulièrement nocifs : la mégapole de Johannesburg, Soweto, et les townships environnants en Afrique du Sud, et des agglomérations urbaines d’Afrique de l’Ouest.
The Anthropocene designates the present geological epoch in which humans have irreversibly change... more The Anthropocene designates the present geological epoch in which humans have irreversibly changed planet Earth, with impacts discernible in the atmosphere, biosphere, and more. The term has also become a "charismatic megacategory" in the humanities and social sciences; some critique the very concept, while others focus on how power dynamics, political economy, racial capitalism, and human/non-human relations manifest-and often accelerate-Anthropocenic transformations. This PhD-level course dives into these debates, drawing on work in a wide range of fields in the humanities, social sciences, arts, and natural science (the latter with works accessible to non-expert audiences). The course involves considerable reading. Written assignments are varied and often experimental. The format of the final assignment is flexible, with options that can be adapted to the needs and interests of individual students.
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Uranium from Africa has long been a major source of fuel for nuclear power and atomic weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In 2003, after the infamous “yellow cake from Niger,” Africa suddenly became notorious as a source of uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. But did that admit Niger, or any of Africa's other uranium-producing countries, to the select society of nuclear states? Does uranium itself count as a nuclear thing? This book probes the question of what it means for something—a state, an object, an industry, a workplace—to be “nuclear.”
It shows that questions about being nuclear lie at the heart of today's global nuclear order and the relationships between “developing nations” (often former colonies) and “nuclear powers” (often former colonizers). The book enters African nuclear worlds, focusing on miners and the occupational hazard of radiation exposure. Could a mine be a nuclear workplace if (as in some South African mines) its radiation levels went undetected and unmeasured? This book is the first to put Africa in the nuclear world, and the nuclear world in Africa, and in so doing remakes our understanding of the nuclear age.
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la producción de energía para la gran minería durante el siglo XX, este trabajo problematiza dicha neutralidad demostrando cómo la reducción de emisiones corporativas de la gran minería en Chile opera a través de la producción de omisiones de carbón, a
saber, a través de la omisión de los sedimentos tóxicos producidos por la combustión de varios combustibles que han generado lo que llamamos cenizas del Antropoceno.
Para visualizar estos sedimentos, proponemos experimentar con una estratigrafía tóxica situada que revela los procesos históricos que precedieron la acumulación de cenizas sobre los sedimentos cuaternarios del acantilado costero, y que también explora los efectos actuales y futuros de la interacción entre estas capas. En última instancia, nuestro análisis situado en Tocopilla muestra cómo la carbono-neutralidad
minera funciona como una abstracción con aspiraciones capitalistas que, al proponer discursivamente el desarrollo de transiciones energéticas, omite las transformaciones materiales y tóxicas desencadenadas por transiciones mineras.
Industrial extraction is turning the Earth inside out, massively increasing the quantity, extent, and durability of waste material around the world. African minerals have played a particularly important role in this dynamic, simultaneously serving as both a source and a product of violence, including the slow violence of environmental degradation and racial capitalism. This article explores these processes by surveying two zones plagued by particularly intense toxic residues: the megalopolis of Johannesburg, Soweto, and the surrounding townships, and urban agglomerations in West Africa.
Uranium from Africa has long been a major source of fuel for nuclear power and atomic weapons, including the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In 2003, after the infamous “yellow cake from Niger,” Africa suddenly became notorious as a source of uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. But did that admit Niger, or any of Africa's other uranium-producing countries, to the select society of nuclear states? Does uranium itself count as a nuclear thing? This book probes the question of what it means for something—a state, an object, an industry, a workplace—to be “nuclear.”
It shows that questions about being nuclear lie at the heart of today's global nuclear order and the relationships between “developing nations” (often former colonies) and “nuclear powers” (often former colonizers). The book enters African nuclear worlds, focusing on miners and the occupational hazard of radiation exposure. Could a mine be a nuclear workplace if (as in some South African mines) its radiation levels went undetected and unmeasured? This book is the first to put Africa in the nuclear world, and the nuclear world in Africa, and in so doing remakes our understanding of the nuclear age.
la producción de energía para la gran minería durante el siglo XX, este trabajo problematiza dicha neutralidad demostrando cómo la reducción de emisiones corporativas de la gran minería en Chile opera a través de la producción de omisiones de carbón, a
saber, a través de la omisión de los sedimentos tóxicos producidos por la combustión de varios combustibles que han generado lo que llamamos cenizas del Antropoceno.
Para visualizar estos sedimentos, proponemos experimentar con una estratigrafía tóxica situada que revela los procesos históricos que precedieron la acumulación de cenizas sobre los sedimentos cuaternarios del acantilado costero, y que también explora los efectos actuales y futuros de la interacción entre estas capas. En última instancia, nuestro análisis situado en Tocopilla muestra cómo la carbono-neutralidad
minera funciona como una abstracción con aspiraciones capitalistas que, al proponer discursivamente el desarrollo de transiciones energéticas, omite las transformaciones materiales y tóxicas desencadenadas por transiciones mineras.
Industrial extraction is turning the Earth inside out, massively increasing the quantity, extent, and durability of waste material around the world. African minerals have played a particularly important role in this dynamic, simultaneously serving as both a source and a product of violence, including the slow violence of environmental degradation and racial capitalism. This article explores these processes by surveying two zones plagued by particularly intense toxic residues: the megalopolis of Johannesburg, Soweto, and the surrounding townships, and urban agglomerations in West Africa.
Yet students have had few opportunities to grapple with how this history relates to present day challenges, including here in the Bay Area – let alone to do so in collaboration with communities experiencing those impacts.
The course examines the hidden nuclear history of the Bay Area, focusing primarily on San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood and the adjacent Hunters Point Shipyard, a Navy base where ships used in the Marshall Islands atomic tests were returned to be “decontaminated,” a process that ended up spreading radiological contamination into neighborhoods and waterways. Students learn about how these legacies are connected to histories of the nuclear age elsewhere in the world, including nuclear test sites in the Pacific. The course guides students through community-engaged research on an aspect of Bay Area nuclear history, based on primary sources that range from archives to oral histories. A key aspect of the course is its collaboration with the Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates (BVHPCA), a group that works to address the toxic legacy of the shipyard – and other industrial activities – for Bayview residents.