Extractivisms, existences, and extinctions

Abstract

With Extractivisms, Existences and Extinctions, Markus Kröger has given us a searing critique of capitalist extractivism and its destruction of human and other webs of life. Arguing that we must embrace 'more than human' ways of seeing today's crisis, Kröger makes a signal contribution to ongoing struggles for planetary justice."

The Political Ontology of Corporate Social Responsibility: Obscuring the Pluriverse in Place

“…The Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) lists over 3,600 of such conflicts globally, most of which are struggles over land and territory (Temper et al, 2015 ). For example, many of such conflicts are over water qualit and landscapes upon which fisherfolk, tourism entrepreneurs or Indigenous populations depend for their own existences, which are, however, affected detrimentally by large-scale industrial, forestry, mining, and windmill facilities (Dunlap & Correa Acre, 2022 ; Heikkinen et al, 2013 ; Ehrnström-Fuentes, 2016 , 2022b ; Joutsenvirta & Vaara, 2015 ; Littlewood, 2014 ; Kröger, 2021 ; O’Faircheallaigh & Ali, 2017 ). Such struggles tend to emerge in places where trees, mountains and rivers are not consider just as resources suitable for extractive purposes but sentient ‘earth beings’ (de la Cadena, 2015 ) that, together with (and inseparable from) people, shape how life is lived in place (Ehrnström-Fuentes, 2022b ; Mansilla Quiñones & Melin Pehuen, 2019 ).…”

Interrogating Ecocide: Welcome to the Political Economy of Existences

“…Offering greater space to “non-modernist forces,” practices and cosmologies, Kröger—following Marisol de la Cadena and Mario Blaser (2018)—highlights the inadequacy of the “Anthropocene,” “ecosystem,” and “biodiversity” terminology. The term “existences,” then, serves as a response to this technical terminology, challenging the limited (Western) modernist and hierarchical taxonomy associated with the term “species.” Existences indicate the multiplicity of “spirits,” “earth-beings,” and “more-than human natures” (Kröger, 2022: 8–9). This framing reveals how materialist frameworks and language conceals the destructive effects of extractivism(s), which are far greater than people realize.…”

“…Introducing a productive typology of extractivism, Chapter 2 charts the diversity and intensity of extractivist projects. Kröger (2022: 47–8) offers four qualitative characters (e.g. erasure; monotonous regimentation of life-forms; socio-ecological outcomes; and inequalities) and seven scales between “hyperextractivist” (5) to “non-extractivist” (0) and “anti-extractivist” (−1), the latter is regarded for its potential to reverse habitat degrading processes.…”

“…Focusing on the conversion of forests to monocultures and factory slaughterhouses, the chapter meditates on the homogenization of space through the cultivation of cloned and genetically engineered soybeans, corn, cotton and chickens, the former necessitating herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, bactericides and disinfectants. Agricultural “inputs” and factory slaughterhouses necessities actions, following Tony Weis (2013), that “overrides” the natural lifeways, rhythms and biological processes that would otherwise exist Actions that override habitats and biological processes, Kröger (2022: 87) shows actually “the eradication of lives” by imposing “a violent, suffocating aversive logic, which leads to far worse problems, such as pandemics.” This chapter demystifies the seemingly harmless term of “production” (89–90), the “dangers of ecological compensation schemes” that flatten and deny existences in order to make them exchangeable (94). This chapter details the ideological justification and production of ecocidal processes.…”

“…The conclusion restates that extractivism “causes annihilations and transformations that fundamentally redistribute existences” (99), referring to the mass killing of humans, cultures, animals, and insects. “Nutrition depletion,” Kröger (2022: 101) explains, “is also a loss of the lives and diversity of micro-organisms, and all the existences that create a living and healthy soil.” Ontologies and language can “deny” a multiplicity of existences and allow these creatures to be “overlooked, and then it is killed” (106). Monocultures “disciplines people and plants alike” (102), observes Kröger.…”