Extraction in Four Dimensions: Time, Space and the Emerging Geo(-)politics of Deep-Sea Mining
Extraction in Four Dimensions: Time, Space and the Emerging Geo(-)politics of Deep-Sea Mining
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DOI：
10.1080/14650045.2018.1465041
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发表时间：
2018-06
期刊：
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
John Childs
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
John Childs
摘要尽管众所周知，人们对深海的了解不如外太空，但深海采矿（DSM）正在被推广为资源开采的下一个前沿。2019年，Nautilus Minerals希望成为世界上第一家在巴布亚新几内亚（PNG）附近的沃茨开采深海海底的公司。因此，DSM站在成为政治问题的门槛上;它引发了广泛的地缘政治冲突，一方面与“资源安全”和“进步”有关，另一方面与环境灾难和预防有关。然而，这些叙述几乎没有解决深海、海底的特定“性质”及其极端位置和材料，而是受到对国家间关系的典型地缘政治担忧的影响。在此背景下，并说明了以巴布亚新几内亚为中心的例子，本文认为，未来的接触与DSM的地缘政治更准确地概念化的时间和三维空间的参与。这包括多个空间和时间登记册，海底和海水的地质和生态都通过这些登记册运作。通过强调资源时间性的重要性，它表明，DSM和开采在极端地区的地缘政治不仅在空间上是复杂的，它也是一个时间问题。
ABSTRACT Despite the truism that less is known about the deep-sea than outer space, deep-sea mining (DSM) is being promoted as the next frontier of resource extraction. In 2019, Nautilus Minerals hopes to become the world’s first company to mine the deep seabed in the waters off Papua New Guinea (PNG). DSM thus stands at the threshold of becoming a matter of politics; it has provoked a wide range of geopolitical imaginaries variously relating to ‘resource security’ and ‘progress’, on the one hand, and environmental disaster and precaution on the other. However, these accounts do little to address the specific ‘nature’ of the deep-sea, seabed and their extreme location and materialities, and are instead framed by classic geopolitical concerns with interstate relations. Against this background and illustrated by examples centred on PNG, this paper argues that future engagements with the geopolitics of DSM are more accurately conceptualised by an engagement with time as well as three dimensional space. This includes the multiple spatial and temporal registers through which both the geology and ecologies of seabed and seawater operate. By highlighting the importance of resource temporalities, it suggests that the geopolitics of both DSM and extraction in extreme places more generally is not only spatially complex, it is also a matter of time.