Subterranean subalterns: Territorialisation, deterritorialisation, and the aesthetics of mining

Abstract

Building on the notions of territorialisation and deterritorialisation, as developed by Deleuze and Guattari [1972. Capitalisme et schizophrénie: L'anti-Œdipe. Paris: Les éditions de minuit; 1980. Mille Plateaux. Capitalisme et Schizophrénie 2. Paris: Les Éditions de minuit], and relating them to work, this paper engages and experiments with the aesthetic study of organisation. In particular, this paper discusses the political aesthetics of deterritorialisation as exemplified in the work of Jean Marc Dalpé. The rhythm of the mines and lines of flight (attempts at deterritorialisation from the subterranean depths) initiate a new mode of visibility – a new way of seeing and speaking of this reality that renders salient and immanent the ambivalence of territorialisation and deterritorialisation. The work of Dalpé presents the deep imprints of the subterranean territory on the body, soul, and experience of Northern Ontarian miners. Dalpé's work evidences the multiplicity of lines of flight that emanate from attempts to negotiate the traumatic and ontological distance created by the multiple haecceities of mining-as-territorialisation. In this paper, through an engagement with the work of Dalpé, we explore an example of the creative capacity of art to reflect the aesthetic realities of a situation that is, in many ways, ugly and oppressive, and shift the emphasis of organisational aesthetics in a more critical direction.