Arctic mineral futures: tracing geoscience knowledge from field to community in the Northwest Territories, Canada

Thesis

This thesis explores the ‘becoming’ of mineral resources in the Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, and the role that geoscience knowledge and bodily-material relations play in that process. Mineral resources are assembled through a diversity of practices and knowledges which enable their identification, bounding and circulation within global economies. Existing literatures have explored the circulation, valuation and demands for commodities largely from a cultural perspective. In response, this thesis presents another approach which focusses on the relations between geological materials and the bodies and emotions of scientists and citizens. This is done by drawing on literatures from cultural and resource geographies and science and technology studies.

The ‘becoming’ of resources is examined at three sites. First, this thesis follows the production of geological bedrock maps (which are the first step in finding minerals) by applying ethnographic methods of shadowing geologists working both in the office and field in the NWT. There, the movement of geologists through geological spaces and their enchantment with geological materials are shown as being crucial to the production of geoscience knowledge. This contributes to our understanding of the significance of bodily material relations in the production of geoscience knowledge, which has been unrecognised in existing resource geography literatures. Second, this thesis digs into how a mineral potential map (MPM) was created for part of the NWT with the intention of supporting an all-season road to the Arctic coast in Nunavut. There, using interviews with economic geologists and comparisons with industry best-practice guidelines, a critique about how well the MPM allows us to understand what minerals lie underground is delivered. As a result, existing literature on volume and resource accounting is developed with nuanced understanding of how geological materiality challenges resource accounting methods, and the mechanisms geoscientists use to counter this. Third, this thesis explores a site where geoscience materials are used by the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) within a public engagement context to improve a community’s receptiveness to mineral resource development. There, the thesis shows how the GNWT applies a public deficit model and utilises geoscience materials to try to ‘educate’ community members and influence their emotions around the extractive industry. The GNWT is shown as siting the problem of resource development mistrust not as an issue of the government’s communication and engagement technique, but rather as one of public ignorance and mistrust in science. As a result, existing literature on public engagement, materials and emotions are developed.

Authors: Becker, M

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-pmap8ddex
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Arctic; geology; knowledge production; cultural geography; mineral potential mapping; mining; ethnography; Northwest Territories; public engagement; more than human geography; minerals; facilitators; Canada; geoscience
• Subjects: Cultural geography; Geography; Human geography