Rare Earth Frontiers (eBook)

From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes

Julie M. Klinger (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
340 Seiten
Cornell University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5017-1460-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Rare Earth Frontiers is a work of human geography that serves to demystify the powerful elements that make possible the miniaturization of electronics, green energy and medical technologies, and essential telecommunications and defense systems. Julie Michelle Klinger draws attention to the fact that the rare earths we rely on most are as common as copper or lead, and this means the implications of their extraction are global. Klinger excavates the rich historical origins and ongoing ramifications of the quest to mine rare earths in ever more impossible places.

Klinger writes about the devastating damage to lives and the environment caused by the exploitation of rare earths. She demonstrates in human terms how scarcity myths have been conscripted into diverse geopolitical campaigns that use rare earth mining as a pretext to capture spaces that have historically fallen beyond the grasp of centralized power. These include legally and logistically forbidding locations in the Amazon, Greenland, and Afghanistan, and on the Moon. Drawing on ethnographic, archival, and interview data gathered in local languages and offering possible solutions to the problems it documents, this book examines the production of the rare earth frontier as a place, a concept, and a zone of contestation, sacrifice, and transformation.

"Rare Earth Frontiers is a timely text. As Klinger notes, rare earths are neither rare nor technically earths, but they are still widely believed to be both. Although her approach focuses on the human, or cultural, geography of rare earths mining, she does not ignore the geological occurrence of these mineral types, both on Earth and on the moon.... This volume is excellently organized, insightfully written, and extensively sourced."―ChoiceDrawing on ethnographic, archival, and interview data gathered in local languages and offering possible solutions to the problems it documents, this book examines the production of the rare earth frontier as a place, a concept, and a zone of contestation, sacrifice, and transformation.

Rare Earth Frontiers is a work of human geography that serves to demystify the powerful elements that make possible the miniaturization of electronics, green energy and medical technologies, and essential telecommunications and defense systems. Julie Michelle Klinger draws attention to the fact that the rare earths we rely on most are as common as copper or lead, and this means the implications of their extraction are global. Klinger excavates the rich historical origins and ongoing ramifications of the quest to mine rare earths in ever more impossible places.

Klinger writes about the devastating damage to lives and the environment caused by the exploitation of rare earths. She demonstrates in human terms how scarcity myths have been conscripted into diverse geopolitical campaigns that use rare earth mining as a pretext to capture spaces that have historically fallen beyond the grasp of centralized power. These include legally and logistically forbidding locations in the Amazon, Greenland, and Afghanistan, and on the Moon.

Autor

Julie Michelle Klinger holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware.

Inhalt

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. What Are Rare Earth Elements?
2. Placing China in the World History of Discovery, Production, and Use
3. "Welcome to the Hometown of Rare Earths"
4. Rude Awakenings
5. From the Heartland to the Head of the Dog
6. Extraglobal Extraction
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
References

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.1.2018
• Zusatzinfo: 4 b&w halftones, 10 maps, 6 charts
• Verlagsort: Ithaca
• Sprache: englisch
• Maße: 150 x 150 mm
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik ► Natur / Ökologie
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Mineralogie / Paläontologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Themenwelt: Technik ► Bergbau
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Wirtschaftspolitik
• Schlagworte: books about living on the moon • Cerium • discovery of rare earth metals • earth science • Economic conditions • energy studies • exploitation of rare earths • extractive industries • geographic science • Geopolitics • geostrategic consequences of rare earth metals • Human geography • impact of rare earth metals • lanthanum • Lunar Mining • mineral composition • mineral properties • Mineral Resources • Mining • mining business • mining on the moon • mining science • mining technology • Political Economy • political economy of rare earth metals • Power resources • rare earth elements • rare earth metal extraction • rare earth metals • rare earth metals in brazil • rare earth metals in china • rare earth metals in inner mongolia • Rare earth oxides • scandium, yttrium • social aspects of rare earth metals • the science & technology of rare earth mining • what are rare earth metals • where are there rare earth metals • will we mine on the moon
• ISBN-10: 1-5017-1460-0 / 1501714600
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5017-1460-3 / 9781501714603