Mining, geological imaginations, and the politics of subterranean knowledge in the colonial Andes

Filling the hole? On new geographies of the subsurface

“…What Scott adds is a perceptive eye towards the dynamic imaginations of the underground in colonial imaginaries—and how they shape a variety of other conceptions of nature and indigeneity. In contrast to some self-same theories of extractive coloniality, Scott (2021: 374) shows how the subterranean is emblematic of internal fractures, debates, and anxieties—an “array of theories of the earth”—which constituted the Spanish colonial project. Braun (2000) shows how geologic epistemologies helped constitute settler political rationalities in the Canadian settler colonial context two centuries later.…”

“…Early contributions by Braun (2000) and Scott (2008) demonstrate the role of the vertical in producing a diverse variety of colonial forms of knowledge. Scott's work examining the colonial attempts to manage mining labor (Scott, 2012) and map geologic resources (Scott, 2015(Scott, , 2021 at Potosí echo the importance of this particular resource extractive social formation to the emergence of early capitalism (Moore, 2010). What Scott adds is a perceptive eye towards the dynamic imaginations of the underground in colonial imaginaries-and how they shape a variety of other conceptions of nature and indigeneity.…”

“…The variety of volumes and verticalities in mines and other underground spaces makes them ripe for further comparative analysis. For instance, the historical emergence of horizontally drilled adits (Scott, 2021) is a different form and context—and responds to different market and epistemological demands—than microbiological mining (Labban, 2014). Further, what makes these verticalities particularly salient in nation-building beyond the resource nationalism of, say, forests is their quality of depth .…”