Highlights:
- Comparative analysis of gold and critical mineral booms..
- Mobilize the concept of “moral economy” to understand the internal dynamics of these extractive processes, which are confronted with the reorganization of global mining supply chains.
- Identify the drivers of these extractive dynamics.
Abstract:
The ECOBOOM project offers an analysis of contemporary transformations in the mining sector in the context of the energy transition and their effects on mining practices and territories. It adopts a North–South perspective that encompasses extractive territories as well as national and global scales. It compares two parallel yet interconnected extractive processes within the global mining sector, examining their connections: the boom in the extraction of energy-transition metals (ETMs), including metals such as lithium and rare earth elements, and the boom in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), which particularly affects the gold sector.
This collaborative research is based on the central hypothesis of the greening of resources, understood both as a new rhetoric aimed at making the exploitation of certain minerals appear “indispensable” and as the set of institutional and technical mechanisms associated with it.
Associated projects:
ANR “Le Grand Entrepôt” Project
It focuses on the emergence of “free trade zones” (Mercier, 1997, 2017) and industrial and commercial “gray zones” (Azaïs, 2014), which play a crucial role in organizing the storage function, referred to by some economists as the “warehouse economy” (Porter, 1947; Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, 1994).
https://lgentrepot.hypotheses.org/anr-le-grand-entrepot-lge
Contactos: Delphine” Mercier: delphine.mercier@cnrs.fr
ANR SciOUTPOST Project
It highlights scientific centers located in peripheral areas of the French overseas territories, legacies of the imperial era. It contributes to the literature examining the extent to which the power of global metropolises and their modes of governance are rooted in French overseas territories, particularly through scientific production.
https://scioutpost.hypotheses.org/
Contact: David Dumoulin: david.dumoulin@sorbonne-nouvelle.fr
