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Spatial Causalities in Resource Rushes: Notes from the Finnish Mining Boom
Author(s) -
Kröger Markus
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of agrarian change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.63
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1471-0366
pISSN - 1471-0358
DOI - 10.1111/joac.12113
Subject(s) - boom , resource (disambiguation) , politics , economic geography , geography , natural resource , work (physics) , exploitation of natural resources , empirical research , regional science , economy , environmental resource management , political science , economics , geology , law , computer science , engineering , mechanical engineering , computer network , philosophy , oceanography , epistemology
Since the mid‐2000s, the world has seen an unprecedented expansion in corporate resource extraction. This global phenomenon has not been restricted to the Global South, but has also been, unexpectedly and interestingly, felt in the Global North in contexts that were considered to be ruled by political systems where the impacts of rapid resource extraction would not be felt. Between 2005 and 2010, for example, the volume of metallic ore and waste rock mining in Finland increased from fewer than 5 million tons to 46 million tons, mostly through the inauguration of four large mines in the east and north of the country. This paper examines the various explanations for the mining expansion, based on expert interviews, participant observation and a spatial analysis of the change dynamics. The importance and causalities in the control and divisions of social, physical and symbolic spaces are assessed, drawing on and interweaving the theories of Arrighi and Harvey, and conceptualizations of Moore and Bourdieu. A series of fertile conceptual tools for analysing the role of spatial dynamics in land‐use changes is developed and put to work in the empirical analysis. The results are significant for the literatures on spatial dynamics and Arctic land‐use change.