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| Valley section of appropriation (Berta Morata based on Geonorge, LKAB, NaturalEarth, SLU, historical maps) |
This research (PhD student Berta Morata, supervisors: Agatino Rizzo, Andrea Luciani, advisor: Chiara Cavalieri)—framed as a methodological contribution and at the
intersection between the critical urban, urban political ecology and
world-ecology disciplines—builds on Corboz’s metaphor of ‘territory as a
palimpsest’ to explore the representation of the socio-economic and
ecological processes underpinning uneven development under extractive
capitalist urbanization. While the palimpsest approach has typically
been used to map transformations of more traditional urban morphologies,
this work focuses instead on remote extraction territories appropriated
by the global economy and integral to planetary urbanization. The
thesis suggests the central notion of ‘palimpsests of appropriation’ as
a lens to map the extraction processes. It does so in its multi-scalar
and temporal dimensions and on the basis of the three intertwined
frames—i.e., the productive, distribution and mediation
palimpsest—shortly exemplifying its use on the ground for the iron ore
extraction territory in the Swedish-Norwegian Arctic. With this, the research contributes to the development of an expanded representational
methodology and conception of territories of extraction—where social and
natural production are brought together—illustrating how appropriation
has been (re)shaping each of the frames throughout historical
thresholds, but also how socio-natures are being (re)made in its image.
