Deep-Sea Mining: the Shape-Shifting Imaginaries at the New Extractivist Frontier

Abstract Narratives of extraction are, in essence, speculations about imagined futures. This article addresses the emerging global phenomenon of deep-sea mining by examining how industry actors engage in rituals of negation to construct, negotiate, and reproduce scenarios of autonomous mineral extraction to curtail concerns over environmental risk. Being hailed as a redeeming frontier of capitalist growth in a post-carbon world, the deep ocean is prefigured as a site for sustainable exploitation by ultimately being fabricated as a lifeless, and socio-ecological void. First, the article considers the discursive elements underlying virtual scenarios of deep-sea mining, ethnographically exploring how shape-shifting imaginaries of technology unfold within corporate conferences in Norway. Second, and drawing connections to the Pacific, the article discusses how “gentle mineral extractions” are not only asserted as a technical endeavor of accumulation, but as claims of emancipation by proponents arguing deep-sea mining may lead to broader social labor justice.