Seminars

The term extractivism denotes a welcome return to questions of materiality, nature, infrastructure, and human labour in the study of capitalism. It suggests a shift in focus from seemingly immaterial or fictive forms of capital in studies of financialization, digital feudalism, and data capitalism. But this refocusing carries the risk of forgetting what we can learn from narrow terms such as finance and data about the source of what is captured through extraction. Whether through the earth, the body, or the cloud, modes of extraction continually reinvent a common and long-standing practice: extraction from the future.

Eastern Congolese artisanal miners of the “digital minerals” that make technology possible understand that their actions and practices are being observed by and broadcast to others around the world in ways that they don’t control, and which ultimately distort reality and take power and autonomy away from them. NGOs and media outlets mobilize imagery (photos, film) that is used to drive them out of the sites that they discovered, which industrial mining companies go on to usurp. Satellites watch their movements and transmit news of their most banal conflicts to state officials—not to protect them, but to ensure that the minerals that go into electronics are “free of blood” so that the consumers of iPhones will feel comfortable touching them. And new regulations and digitized tracking schemes—themselves the outcome of media spectacle surrounding blood minerals—have placed them at risk of expropriation by Congolese state officials, as minerals from unvalidated mines are now often understood to be “bloody” even if they come from conflict free mines. While there are things that are new about these forms of surveillance, those involved in the mineral trade tend to see them as aspect of a long term regime: at least since the time of King Leopold, outsiders have been using techniques of surveillance (record keeping, mapmaking, and now satellites and cameras that see under the ground) to know and control Congolese earth and resources better than Congolese, and to exploit that knowledge for their own profit. Yet, at the same time as eyes of the world work to control Congolese earth and forest at the expense of Congolese, diggers also have access to their own media (including techniques for communicating with ancestors, who are ultimately responses for the release of minerals to the world system), which they use to avoid, circumvent, or elicit truths that remain invisible to the Eyes of the World.

The essay examines onyx extracted from quarries near Tlemcen in Western Algeria. It offers an alternative account of the rise of polychromy in Parisian architecture, relating it to France’s national efforts to expand its quarrying industry. It demonstrates how the annexation of Algeria in 1848 played a key role in stimulating the development of quarries in the colony, providing an abundant supply of materials that fueled the increasing use of polychrome stone in French architecture. By examining two iconic Parisian buildings—the tomb of Napoleon and Garnier’s Opera—this study proposes rethinking these monuments as representations of France’s imperial ambitions and its global reach.