TY - CHAP

T1 - Political Geologies of Magma

AU - Clark, Nigel Halcomb

PY - 2019

Y1 - 2019

N2 - When engineers drilling geothermal boreholes in Iceland’s volcanically active Krafla region in 2009 unexpectedly struck a magma body some two kilometres down it opened up the possibility both of studying magma in situ and of using heat from magma directly as an energy source. Recognizing the novelty of this event, I explore some of the ways that magma might become politicized over the coming years—using a conceptual framework that involves three distinct, though related, approaches to the political geology of magma. The first, drawing on political ecology, looks at how power from magma fits into Iceland’s recent energy-intensive, capital-attracting development strategy. The second, taking insights from relational materialist thought, considers how the specific properties of magma might trigger new political mobilizations. The third, more speculative and philosophical in tone, reflects on how we might see magma and other geological forces as the very condition of possibility of the political—as forms of ‘geopower’ that antecede, subtend and energise all social and political formations. Taken together, these three approaches suggest an open, experimental approach to the formation of new political issues and subjects in which new kinds of ‘becoming with magma’ defy prediction.

AB - When engineers drilling geothermal boreholes in Iceland’s volcanically active Krafla region in 2009 unexpectedly struck a magma body some two kilometres down it opened up the possibility both of studying magma in situ and of using heat from magma directly as an energy source. Recognizing the novelty of this event, I explore some of the ways that magma might become politicized over the coming years—using a conceptual framework that involves three distinct, though related, approaches to the political geology of magma. The first, drawing on political ecology, looks at how power from magma fits into Iceland’s recent energy-intensive, capital-attracting development strategy. The second, taking insights from relational materialist thought, considers how the specific properties of magma might trigger new political mobilizations. The third, more speculative and philosophical in tone, reflects on how we might see magma and other geological forces as the very condition of possibility of the political—as forms of ‘geopower’ that antecede, subtend and energise all social and political formations. Taken together, these three approaches suggest an open, experimental approach to the formation of new political issues and subjects in which new kinds of ‘becoming with magma’ defy prediction.

KW - political geology

KW - magma

KW - Iceland

KW - extraction

KW - political ecology

KW - material politics

KW - geopower

KW - Deleuze and Guattari

KW - Krafla

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-98189-5_10

DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-98189-5_10

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9783319981888

SP - 263

EP - 292

BT - Political Geology

A2 - Bobbette, Adam

A2 - Donovan, Amy

PB - Palgrave Macmilan

ER -