Creating, capturing, and circulating commodities: The technology and politics of material resource flows, from the 19th century to the present
Review article, 2020
Extractive resources are unevenly distributed geographically and our dependence on such resources is growing, which has led to ever increasing flows of resources across the world. This situation has caused concern for numerous actors. However, such worries are not new. Todays’ feel of a deeply interconnected, rapidly changing world with global grand challenges has striking resemblances with the nineteenth century mood in the industrializing countries. In this special issue we study the temporal dynamics and multiple geographies of resource flows, and how actors have attempted to shape and control them. In five articles by historians of technology and the environment from Sweden, Russia and the Netherlands, we aim to broaden the view on resource narratives and emphasize their non-static characters by showing developments of resources as they travel through time and space. This introductory article introduces and positions five themes that are addressed in the contributions of special issue. In this special issue scholars discuss (1) the social construction of resources, (2) the importance of resources to nation states, (3) resource flows as transnational practices, (4) technopolitics of resources, and (5) resource flows as global political power hierarches, of resources such as oil, metals, iron ore, uranium and stone.
Extractive resources
Environmental history
Resource nationalism
Oil
Transnational history
Technopolitics
Resource colonialism
Resource spaces
Resource security
Sustainability
Resource chain dynamics
Limestone
Global history
Resource construction
Metals
History of technology
Iron
Uranium
Author
Frank Veraart
Eindhoven University of Technology
Anna Åberg
Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Science, Technology and Society
Hanna Vikström
Umeå University
Extractive Industries and Society
2214790x (ISSN) 2214-790X (eISSN)
Vol. 7 1 1-7Subject Categories
Social Anthropology
History of Technology
Human Geography
DOI
10.1016/j.exis.2019.10.017