Cultural studies of extraction

• Published in: Cultural studies (London, England) Vol. 31; no. 2-3; pp. 175 - 184
• Main Authors: Junka-Aikio, Laura, Cortes-Severino, Catalina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 04.05.2017; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Academic disciplines; Buen vivir; Capital; climate; Cultural studies; Economic inequality; energy; Environmental degradation; Epistemology; Exploitation; Extraction; extractivism; Globalization; Indigenous struggles; Meaning; Mining; Natural resource management; Political activism; Politics; Resources; Social inequality; Sociology of culture
• ISSN: 0950-2386; 1466-4348
• DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2017.1303397

The special double issue at hand offers Cultural Studies engagements with extractivism and the myriad of conflicts, struggles and other processes and phenomena that have risen together with the on-going intensification and expansion of extractivist industries and exploitation. In this article, we examine the political and epistemological stakes of these engagements, and introduce the different perspectives from which the notions of extractivism and extraction are approached within this issue. We argue that as a conceptual framework loaded with political meaning and potential, and able to address the on-going moment of dwindling resources, environmental degradation and heightened social and economic inequality, extractivism and studies of extraction are crucial for the discipline's efforts to engage contemporary culture politically, and to examine on-going processes of exploitation and subjectification through specific context and cases. Many of the articles included in this issue expand understandings of extraction, and present a broad range of methods and analytical frameworks through which different forms of 'extractivism' and its consequences might be examined, deciphered and discussed within Cultural Studies. And yet, what emerges out of these efforts eventually, is the ultimate centrality of the war between climate and capital for contemporary politics of globalization.