| NSF Org: |
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | June 14, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | June 14, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1632651 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Frederick Kronz
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2016 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $24,695.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $24,695.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1600 GRAND AVE SAINT PAUL MN US 55105-1899 (651)696-6062 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1500 Illinois Street Golden CO US 80401-1843 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | STS-Sci, Tech & Society |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.075 |
ABSTRACT
General Audience Summary
The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars whose work addresses technologies, practices, and forms of knowledge related to the mining of minerals, groundwater and fossil fuels. The workshop will be held in November 2016 at the Colorado School of Mines over a three-day period. Its goal is to define a new subfield in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) on subterranean extraction. The workshop will highlight the theoretical and topical commonalities as well as disagreements and debates that make the study of mining and extraction a vibrant, emerging subfield. Workshop participants will include mining and extraction experts as discussants and field trip leaders. Workshop organizers will develop a public website that includes the workshop agenda, conference papers, an executive summary of the event, and a video of the keynote address, which will be live streamed. The organizers have plans to draw audience members from the dense network of industry practitioners in the Front Range, which is home to many mining, oil and gas, and other energy companies. They also plan to prepare an edited volume that includes new and existing STS work on mining and subterranean extraction.
Technical Summary
The workshop will focus on societal aspects of extractive processes of mining and other forms of natural resource development, which is a potentially rich new area for the field of STS. The existing scholarship on extraction from anthropology, geography and environmental studies provides important insights on the social and environmental dimensions of natural resource production, especially the consequences of this development for vulnerable communities. Yet these fields remain largely distinct from STS and rarely engage practitioners, such as scientists and engineers. STS scholars have studied recent technological developments such as high-volume hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from shale, solar technologies that require rare earth metals, and even the pursuit of minerals found in asteroids. However, subterranean extraction is not yet an identifiable domain of research in STS. STS is well positioned to make an impact in this domain, opening up crucial questions about the expertise, knowledge, and power animating extractive practices. The mapping and extraction of underground resources are technoscientific practices that engage multiple, and sometimes competing, forms of expertise. An STS perspective on extraction will examine the technoscientific aspects of how questions about extraction are posed and deliberated, how extraction itself occurs, and how the consequences of such extraction are addressed. Underlying each of these areas are issues of knowledge, expertise and power that STS is uniquely positioned to explore, but has not yet done so in a systematic way.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
In 2015, Roopali Phadke and Abby Kinchy organized an open session for the annual meetings of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), entitled STS Underground: Investigating the Technoscientific Worlds of Mining and Subterranean Extraction. Their aim was to discover and highlight interesting new research on the science, technology, and politics of the subsurface. These first nine presenters in 2015, and subsequent participants at sessions at the 2016 and 2018 4S meetings have expanded this research network.
Given the success of these sessions, Phadke and Kinchy, with the addition of Jessica Smith, proposed a NSF funded three-day workshop in 2017 with the goal of forming a new subfield in STS on subterranean extraction. The aim of this workshop, held at the Colorado School of Mines in February 2017, was to bring together scholars whose work addressed technologies, practices, and forms of knowledge related to the mining of minerals, groundwater and fossil fuels. The workshop sought to highlight the theoretical and topical commonalities as well as disagreements and debates that make the study of mining and extraction a vibrant, emerging subfield of STS.
In the second year of the award, the PIs used the remaining funds from the Colorado workshop to sponsor another three-day workshop in collaboration with colleagues at University of New South Wales, Australia. The funds were used to pay partial travel stipends to participants and cover workshop food and lodging expenses. This event served as a 4S 2018 preconference. The PIs also sponsored an open panel series including three sessions called “STS Underground” at the 4S conference, which featured some of the workshop participants.
The PIs felt that drawing and building on existing social science, STS is well positioned to make an impact in this domain, opening up crucial questions about the expertise, knowledge, and power animating extractive practices. The mapping and extraction of underground resources are technoscientific practices that engage multiple, and sometimes competing, forms of expertise. An STS perspective on extraction can examine the technoscientific aspects of how questions about extraction are posed and deliberated, how extraction itself occurs, and how the consequences of such extraction are addressed.
Through these activites the STS Underground network has become a robust group of nearly a hundred scholars from around the world. Futher events are planned for 2019.
Last Modified: 09/17/2018
Modified by: Roopali D Phadke
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