[ecrea] CFP Cultural Studies of Extraction

Call for Papers

**

*Cultural Studies of Extraction*

A Special Issue for the journal /Cultural Studies/


Editors: Laura Junka-Aikio (University of Oulu, Finland) and Catalina 
Cortes-Severino (Universidad Javeriana, Colombia)

The aim of this special issue of /Cultural Studies/ is to encourage 
cultural approaches to the study of the myriad of conflicts, struggles 
and other phenomena that have risen in response to the ongoing 
intensification and expansion of extractivist industries and forms of 
exploitation. In addition to expanding the potential meanings of 
/extractivism/, we seek to bring analytical attention on the variety of 
popular responses that this extractive moment is generating globally.

In the narrow sense, extractivism refers to mass-scale industrial 
extraction of natural resources but more recently, scholars have begun 
to view extractivism in a much broader sense, as an ideological 
construct and a paradigm of severe exploitation which is characteristic 
of contemporary capitalism and neoliberalism at large, and which 
permeates almost all aspects of the society. Likewise, whereas 
extractivism has, in the past, been associated with colonial divisions 
between the "core" and the "periphery", today its geographies are 
increasingly complex: for instance the mining boom is currently dividing 
communities and raising Indigenous resistance in Scandinavia, and in the 
UK and the USA, it is white middle-class communities faced with 
hydraulic fracturing that are now countering colonial extraction 
policies literally underneath their own houses. Meanwhile in the Global 
South, extractive industries and neoliberal land-based development 
projects are provoking unseen levels of forced displacement, 
environmental destruction, and social divisions and disintegration - as 
well as courageous and complex resistance from Indigenous, peasant and 
black communities that are most affected.

Its centrality to contemporary power notwithstanding, Cultural Studies 
as a discipline has failed to engage this extractive moment actively. In 
scholarly and public debates, extractivism is addressed predominantly 
through economic, environmentalist and developmentalist discourses, and 
hence its benefits and costs to the society are considered primarily in 
relation to statistical and quantitative data.

By calling for cultural approaches to the study of extractivism and its 
discontents, this special issue seeks to encourage broader exploration 
of the multiple consequences, meanings, implications, affects, 
everydayness and resistances that the current conjuncture of neoliberal 
globalization, intensive exploitation and subjectivity might conceal, 
and to support efforts to think past extractivism. How could Cultural 
Studies as a political project help us understand the epistemologial, 
ontological and political stakes of the extractive moment, and imagine 
alternative futures? If extractivism is understood as a dominant 
paradigm of exploitation rather than in reference to a limited set of 
specific industries, what does it mean in different contexts, and what 
are the sites through which it might be studied and examined? How are 
contemporary extractivisms experienced, lived and resisted 
transnationally and in particular locations, through the practices of 
everyday life, through cultural and social production, affects and 
through outright protests and political struggles? In what ways is 
extractivism and resistance to it reflected in popular culture and the 
arts? What does a Cultural Studies of the extractive moment in world 
politics look like?

Suggested paper themes include, but are not restricted to:


- Colonialism, postcolonialism, and geographies of contemporary

        extractivisms

- Extractivism as an ideology and a discursive formation

- Popular and cultural histories of extractivism

- Education and pedagogies of anti- or post-extractivism

- Extractivist exploitation and the mediations of class, gender,

        ethnicity and race

- Artistic resistance and alliances against the extractive industries

- Other knowledges and alternatives to cultures of extraction

- Extractivism in urban spaces and cultures

- Branding extractivisms through popular culture

- Extractivism, gender and the politics of the body

- The cultural consequences of the extractive boom in particular

         locations and/or regions

- Landscapes, soundscapes and other "scapes" of extraction

- Extractivism and time

- Extractivism, everyday life and subjectivities

- Alternative ecologies and culture-nature relationships

- Anti-extractivist resistances and neoliberalism

- Extractivism, translatability of local struggles, and transnational

        resistance

- Academic extraction and appropriation of Indigenous, traditional and

        other knowledges


In addition to academic articles (up to 9000 words), we welcome warmly a 
range of other contributions, such as visual essays, book reviews and 
reviews of artistic and other cultural productions that relate to the 
topics of this issue.

Please send preliminary *abstracts of approximately 500 words*, together 
with a short bio, to BOTH special issue editors by *13th April 
2015.* Also all general inquiries regarding the special issue should be 
directed to the issue editors at corteseverino(at)gmail.com 
<mailto:(corteseverino /at/ gmail.com)>  (Catalina Cortes-Severino), and 
laura.junka-aikio(at)oulu.fi <mailto:(laura.junka-aikio /at/ oulu.fi)> (Laura 
Junka-Aikio). *The submission deadline for the final article manuscripts 
is 31 December 2015.*