This research cluster was part of The Seed Box first phase 2015 - 2019.
Many of the most pressing contemporary environmental challenges are related to the workings of extractive industries. The extraction of natural resources from underground, be it fossil fuels or ores, is creating a growing global threat to humanity and other forms of life, and at the same time is contemporary society heavily dependent on this extraction in almost every aspects of daily life. Within the research area Deep earth we investigate different interpretations and understandings of the environmental consequences and risks related to the development of large socio-technical systems permeating almost all parts of the world.
Special attention is devoted to controversies and conflicts, acts of resistance, related to extractive practises and extractivism, as well as to the discourses of green growth and imaginaries of eco-efficiency increasingly influencing the politics of natural resources. However the underground is not only perceived as an inexhaustible treasury within the discourse of extractivism. It is also depicted as a repository for environmentally hazardous waste. Accordingly the Deep earth research also engage with the relation between resources and waste, putting questions about what waste is, how natural resources become waste and the management of hazardous waste in focus.
One emblematic example of contemporary society´s efforts to deal with these matters is the long gone plans, permeating the Paris Agreement at COP21 in 2015, on storing CO2 in underground aquifers in order to counteract global warming and to relieve the governments of the rich countries from the necessity of imminent and dramatic emission cuts. This example points to the many complexities, contradictions and ironies that characterizes the research area of Deep Earth.
Scientific Leader, Jonas Anshelm, Linköping University
Projects
Publications
Power Production and Environmental Opinions– Environmentally Motivated Resistance to Wind Power in SwedenArticle by Anshelm, Jonas and Anders Hansson
Has the Grand Idea of Geoengineering as Plan B Run out of Steam?Article by Haikola, Simon and Jonas Anshelm
Is Swedish Mineral Politics at a Crossroads? Critical Reflections on the Challenges with Expanding Sweden’s Mining Sector.Article by Haikola, Simon and Jonas Anshelm
The Making of Mining Expectations: Mining Romanticism and Historical Memory in a Neoliberal Political Landscape.Article by Krook, Joakim and Niclas Svensson and Björn Wallsten
Urban Infrastructure Mines: On the Economic and Environmental Motives of Cable Recovery from Subsurface Power Grids.Article by Wallsten, Björn
Toward Social MFA: On the Usefulness of Boundary Objects in Urban Mining Research.Article by Wallsten, Björn and Joakim Krook
Urks & The Urban Subsurface as Geo-Social Formation.Doctoral Dissertation by Wallsten, Björn
The Urk World: Hibernating Infrastructures and the Quest for Urban MiningConference by Anshelm, Jonas
SweMineTechNet ConferenceWorkshop by Öhman, May-Britt
SweMineTechNetLecture by Wallsten, Björn
Hybrid MattersArticle by Wallsten, Björn
Naturvårdsverket hindrar återvinning av mineraler.Article by Wallsten, Björn
Återvinning ur nedlagda avfallsanläggningarArticle by Wallsten, Björn
Ojnareskogen en möjlighet för industrin.Lecture by Fish, Cheryl
Mining and (Re)Moval in Sápmi: Liselotte Wajstedt’s Kiruna: Space Road and Indigenous Environmental JusticeLecture by Hird, Myra
Microontologies of Waste, and the Radical Asymmetry of a Stratified PlanetBook chapter by Kaijser, Anna and Björn Wallsten
Att göra gruvpolitik underifrån: Urbergsgruppen och deltagandets dolda kostnaderConference by Andersson, Daniel
Mind in Complex Systems: The Concept of the Noosphere, between Gregory Bateson and Earth System AnalysisConference by Andersson, Daniel
The Concept of Noosphere in Earth System Science: Planetart Metamorphosis and the Subsumption of Mankind in Terrestrial EvolutionConference by Andersson, Daniel
Measuring Gaia: Sociotechnical Systems as Planetary PhenomenaPresentation by Andersson, Daniel
Self-Reference in the AnthropocenePresentation by Andersson, Daniel
The Nature of Technology in an Era of Global Environmental ChallengesWorkshop by Andersson, Daniel
Undiscipline the AbstractArticle by Anshelm, Jonas and Simon Haikola
Depoliticization, Repolicization, and Environmental Concerns – Swedish Mining Politics as an Instance of Environmental PoliticizationArticle by Haikola, Simon and Jonas Anshelm
State regulation of mining in a post-fordist economy: Local vulnerability in the shadow of hierarchyArticle by Anshelm, Jonas, Simon Haikola and Björn Wallsten
Politicizing environmental governance – A case study of heterogenerous alliances and juridical struggles around the Ojnare Forest, SwedenBook by Anshelm, Jonas and Simon Haikola and Björn Wallsten
Svensk gruvpolitik i omvandling – Aktörer, kontroverser, möjliga världarArticle by Ureta, S., Patricio Flores, and Linda Soneryd
Victimisation Devices: Exploring Challenges Facing Litigation-based Transnational Environmental JusticeBook by Erikson Carl Johan, Willén Karin and Redin Johan
Kokgropar och andra aktiviteter i Forsmarks skogar (Cooking pits and other activities in the Woods of Forsmark)Lecture by Haikola, Simon
Politicising the depolitical – Conflicting imaginaries in Swedish 21st century miningLecture by Andersson, Daniel
Artificial Earth – The Question Concerning Technology in the AnthropoceneFilm by Eernstman, Natalia and Wals, Arjen; Pearon, Kelli; Bjurström, Åse Eliason; de Vrieze, Anke
Imaginative Disruptions – short documentaryArticle by Wilkes, James and Myra, Hird
Colonial ideologies of waste: Implications for land and life