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Geology and world politics: mineral resource appraisals as tools of geopolitical calculation, 1919-1939

Geologie und Weltpolitik: Rohstoffschätzungen als Instrumente geopolitischen Kalküls, 1919-1939
[journal article]

Westermann, Andrea

Abstract

How is nature transformed into natural resources? Histories analyzing the state sciences of agriculture and forestry in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries showed that these sciences redefined nature as natural resources by making them amenable to cameralistic calculation, bookkeeping and ... view more

How is nature transformed into natural resources? Histories analyzing the state sciences of agriculture and forestry in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries showed that these sciences redefined nature as natural resources by making them amenable to cameralistic calculation, bookkeeping and accountability. Against this background, my first line of inquiry is exploring how, over the twentieth century, nonfuel mineral resource appraisals, i.e. attempts to quantify the metal content of the earth’s crust, became the first hold that societies took on earth matters, transforming them into mineral resources. My second objective is to describe and explain a widening of scope. Around 1900, geologists and other mineral resource experts began to appraise minerals on a global scale and survey trends in the worldwide production and consumption of minerals. I argue that, after World War I, states started to use global mineral resource appraisals as tools of geopolitical calculation, aimed at measuring and managing both natural resources and state power relations. The global perspective was only one reason why mineral resources became amenable to economic and political management on a vast scale, though. In addition, global mineral resource supply and estimates had to be cast and discussed in an explicitly functionalist language in order to fit the interwar technocratic ideas of planning and maintaining world order.... view less

Keywords
international relations; natural resources; mining; preserving natural resources; world order; technocracy; raw material deposits; industrialization; globalization; commodity policy; historical development; geopolitics

Classification
General History
Natural Science and Engineering, Applied Sciences
International Relations, International Politics, Foreign Affairs, Development Policy

Free Keywords
history of the earth sciences

Document language
English

Publication Year
2015

Page/Pages
p. 151-173

Journal
Historical Social Research, 40 (2015) 2

Issue topic
Climate and beyond: knowledge production about the earth as a signpost of social change

DOI
https://doi.org/10.12759/hsr.40.2015.2.151-173

ISSN
0172-6404

Status
Published Version; peer reviewed

Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0


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Based on DSpace, Copyright (c) 2002-2022, DuraSpace. All rights reserved.