The Fetish and the Photograph: A Dual History of Extractive Capitalism in Film Photography and Sea Mining

Julie Patarin-Jossec, DePaul University

This presentation analyzes how film photography and human labor in the mining industry are intimately constitutive of one another in the history of extractive capitalism. Discussing how an environmental history of photography and a Marxist history of mining both emphasize a process of invisibilization and subsequent fetishization (of environmental degradation and labor force), the presentation focusses on the extraction of two minerals commonly used in both photography and sea mining-based energy transition (silver and manganese). Elements of an ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in the Midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois) supporting this research will be discussed, including an ongoing series of film photography documenting mining labor, and developing experimental sustainable and site-specific processing techniques.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 115. Labor and Environment