Technology

This chapter highlights the role and importance of technology in the extractive industries by intertwining studies of various kinds, largely but not only by anthropologists. Three definitions of technology as sociotechnical system, as assemblage, and as effective action on matter and subjects circumscribe the scope of this chapter. After a short introduction, the second section highlights how mining technology is the result of creative assemblages of heterogeneous elements, technical and non-technical, which move and adapt to different places, times, and contingent circumstances. It also demonstrates that technological changes can have social effects on social structures, gender, and generational dynamics. The third section examines a central issue for miners, namely, the efficiency of the techniques and tools used to extract natural resources, while highlighting some paradoxical aspects of this efficiency. The fourth section focuses on miners’ knowledge and technical skills, on gender, and on the bodily aspects of the relationship with mining technologies. The chapter concludes with some considerations of the most recent technological developments related to deep seabed mining, asteroid or space mining, and the uses of biotechnology to make extractive activities more efficient and “green”.