Abstract
Digital data — including technologically-mediated data generated by blockchain-enabled traceability — is performing an increasingly integral role in extractive operations, but scarce attention has been paid to the structuring effect of these digital technologies or the socio-economic spatiality of data-driven mining operations. Drawing on extensive qualitative research (interviews, participant observation, and two sets of survey data among actors relevant to these mineral supply chains), this article advances the notion of “digital extraction” to describe the collection, analysis, and instrumentalization of digital data generated under the banner of blockchain-based due diligence, chain of custody certifications, and various transparency mechanisms, situated alongside and in support of mineral extraction. The article mobilizes concepts from political geography and political ecology to argue that digital technologies of traceability in extractive processes potentially create new forms of control and exclusion or exacerbate existing social, political, and territorial dispossession through asymmetric relations of power and knowledge in mineral supply chains. Despite industry efforts to make mineral supply chains more sustainable by resorting to digital certification and traceability, the strategic uses of uncertainty, ignorance, and ambiguity undergirding blockchain-enabled traceability systems fail to challenge existing inequalities in resource use and access or fulfill the promise of transparency and accountability.
Highlights
Over the past two decades, global extractive networks have under gone significant reconfigurations due to the rerouting of supply chains to East Asia, the evolution of the commodities super cycle, and the diminishing availability of high-grade ore veins (Arboleda, 2020; Coy et al, 2017; Bridge, 2009; Narins, 2017)
Drawing on scholarship in political geography and political ecology that theorizes the spatialization of power, digital materialities, and the emergence of socio-ecological conflicts, we argue that digital technologies of traceability are not neutral instruments for governing natural resource extraction
To ensure that data re mains rigorous, verifiable, and reliable, the researchers developed a set of initial questions related to technological developments in traceability and blockchain usage in mineral supply chains, which were in turn reformulated and refined during data collection stages
Summary
Over the past two decades, global extractive networks have under gone significant reconfigurations due to the rerouting of supply chains to East Asia, the evolution of the commodities super cycle, and the diminishing availability of high-grade ore veins (Arboleda, 2020; Coy et al, 2017; Bridge, 2009; Narins, 2017). In the decade since the inception of blockchain technology, the mining industry has been at the forefront of embracing the potential of an open, decentralized, and distributed digital ledger, from the OECD’s Blockchain Policy Forum (2018), the Responsible Minerals Initiative blockchain guidelines (2018, 2020), or other state and industry initia tives examined in this article to tackle the problem of the so-called “conflict minerals.” This concerted effort has meant the possibility of creating a digital database where a tamper-proof, immutable record of transactions, ownership, and origin can be registered, time-stamped, safely stored, and securely operated. We describe traceability initiatives in mineral supply chains, with a partic ular focus on the problem of control, oversight, and data validation in blockchain-enabled projects in the diamond sector We follow this dis cussion with an analysis of digital extraction in the cobalt mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo, emphasizing the usage, effects, and potential limitations of digital data. We conclude with a critical reflection on the sustainability of certification in the digital age
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