Conference Agenda

In 2023, Greenland signed a Memorandum of Understanding on raw materials value chain with the European Union. This non-binding partnership sets the basis for cooperation on mineral resources from extraction to end product. Greenland would benefit from European scientific and industrial network and investments, while Europe would secure a critical raw materials supply chain. Cooperation is ideologically framed by European green transition politics, and by Greenlandic objective to finance independence from Denmark by mining rent. These agendas create the picture of a homogenous State led, green and Europe oriented mining industry; a picture self-fulfilling through mining projects. Nevertheless, ethnographic data and document analysis (from industry, government, European structures) collected since 2016 reveal the central place of another actors, junior companies. Junior companies are young corporations conducting preliminary fieldworks and gathering investments, with the aim of making money by becoming listed on the stock exchange or be bought by a mining giant. To achieve this goal, they work by the “engineering of promises”: their discourses on resource-richness and operations of social development create the illusion of a clear mining future (Laurent and Merlin 2021). It sets the promise of industrial development, whereas it is mere speculation. Most of the time, no mine open. In this contribution, I will investigate the role of junior companies in the EU-Greenland mining partnership and the effect of the engineering of promises on the State led, green and Europe oriented mining narrative and the possibility of its fulfilment. On which promises do junior companies operate in Greenland and Europe? In which ways does it lead to the contradictory effects of seeing Greenland as a central place from Europe, and feeling left-behind from Greenlandic mining places? How is this mining future changing Greenland’s place in Europe? To respond, I will historically contextualise EU-Greenland mining relationships and carry out a mining project case study relying on ethnographic data and document analysis.

Laurent B., Merlin J. « L’ingénierie de la promesse : le renouveau minier français et la « mine responsable » » Nature, Science Society, 2021, 29 : 55-68

This paper critically examines the limitations of Planetary Urbanization (PU) theories by exploring copper mining in Krivelj, Serbia, through the lens of Cindi Katz’s concept of countertopography. As Brenner and Schmid articulated, primarily in Planetary Urbanization: Towards a New Epistemology of the Urban, in 2015, Planetary Urbanization conceptualizes urbanization as a planetary-scale process integrating extraction zones into global infrastructure and production systems. While the theory comprehensively critiques capitalism’s spatial logic, it risks erasing localized urban processes' specificities, contradictions, and lived realities. The case study of Krivelj, a village deeply affected by copper extraction and environmental degradation, reveals the shortcomings of PU’s abstraction and emphasizes the necessity of grounded, place-based analyses.

The paper employs critical mapping practices to trace the collective landscapes of extraction in Krivelj, demonstrating how global urbanization processes generate profound local environmental, social, and cultural disruptions. These mappings—produced using GIS data, LIDAR, field recordings, and community mapping, reveal the ecological consequences of mining, such as river rerouting, soil contamination, and toxic waste dispersal. Simultaneously, the study maps social fragmentation caused by Zijin Mining Group’s piecemeal relocation strategies, which undermine community cohesion and cultural continuity. Residents’ lived experiences and oral histories highlight the economic dependencies and labor precarities that sustain global copper flows while marginalizing local actors.

Drawing on Katz’s theory of countertopography, the research reframes Krivelj as a material and conceptual “outside” to Planetary Urbanization—spaces where the smooth integration of global systems is disrupted, contested, and rendered incomplete. By linking local struggles to broader critiques of capitalist urbanization, countertopography resists the analytical flattening inherent in PU, emphasizing the relational yet situated nature of urbanization processes. Mapping becomes an analytical tool to render visible spatial and social injustices often erased by dominant urban theories.

This paper argues that extraction sites like Krivelj are not peripheral nodes within planetary urban networks but central spaces for understanding urbanization’s contradictions and limits. By centering the specific environmental, social, and cultural impacts of copper mining, the study challenges the totalizing abstraction of PU. It advocates for urban theories that account for localized agency, resistance, and alternative futures. Through critical cartographic methods, the research marginalized spaces as essential sites for rethinking urbanization in the age of global capitalism.

At both European and national levels, policies designed to reduce dependence on critical materials, and to extract minerals from Europe’s subsoil are taking shape since the early 2010s. These policies give rise to new mining projects in Europe. In particular, lithium is of interest to many industrial and political actors, due to its role in energy transition strategies. These extractive projects are made possible by a diversity of financial flows. European lithium projects are thus supported by private fund-raising and investment, bank loans, subsidies and public financial instruments, etc. These flows are carried out by different types of actors, who act at various scales, and support a variety of territorial projects. Based on this observation, we propose to question new mining futures by identifying and analyzing the financial flows that make lithium valorization projects possible. Who provides the capital? What narratives justify the financing of these mining projects? What territorial projects do they support?

This proposal links two fields : the political geography of resources, which studies resources making processes (Raffestin, 1980 ; Bridge, 2009); and approaches based on territorial metabolism that integrate power relations (Buclet, Donsimoni, 2020 ; Buclet, 2022). The aim is to analyze the financial flows which form the territorial metabolism of lithium, to understand how they structure networks of actors, discourses and territorial projects. Thus, this proposal takes a close look at critical resource geography’s invitation to consider the “resource-making/world-making” approach (Valdivia et al., 2022), which links construction of resources processes with production of socioecological worlds.

To do so, we focus on the lithium exploration and exploitation projects located in Alsace, France. This region has a deep history of subsoil exploitation, particularly around oil and potash, now closed. Today, new socio-industrial systems are structuring around lithium, capturing financial flows of various kinds. We analyze the role of European and national funding on the discursive framing about Alsacian lithium. According to the funding sources and the geographical scale at which a given actor is positioned, lithium discursive frames can vary from environmental protection, to national strategic autonomy, or even local economic development.

The transition to a clean energy economy necessitates securing critical minerals—such as nickel, copper, and cobalt—essential for advanced technologies and low-carbon solutions. The European Critical Raw Materials Act (2023) seeks to enhance the EU's self-sufficiency by mandating domestic sourcing of mined, processed, and recycled materials, while addressing the geopolitical challenges of dependence on external suppliers. This proposal explores the environmental and socio-economic implications of renewed extractive activities in Europe, focusing on the Alpine landscapes, particularly investigating Italy, which possesses 16 of the 34 critical raw materials identified in the Act but lacks active metal mining since the 1970s.

Our investigation centers on the proposed strategy by the Italian government to revitalize old and open new mines, particularly in the Alpine regions, alongside the need for substantial technological investments. Among the significant sites is Punta Corna, once Europe's largest cobalt mine, now a focal point for examining the clash between extractivist development and sustainable local economies rooted in tourism. Through a cartographic analysis, we analyze the competing narratives surrounding these mining initiatives, characterized by a traditional extractivist model and the "enrichment economy" (Boltanski & Esquerre, 2019) which emphasizes ultra-protective territorial development strategies. This contrast raises critical questions about the sustainability of mining projects and their alignment with the values of local communities experiencing peripheralization and depopulation.

Our findings shed light on the intricate conflicts arising from rare earth extraction, illustrating the tension between economic aspirations and environmental integrity but also across different development paradigms. By framing Punta Corna as a case study, exploring its extractivist dynamics as advantaged laboratory for understanding the fears and hopes of local communities linked to the European Critical Raw Materials Act projects, we aim to ultimately contributing to broader discussions on sustainable resource governance and the socio-political complexities of extractive economies.