Diamond Mining 04–12–22
Experimental Infrastructures
Extraction in the Canadian Arctic is made visible—and invisible—through maps and infrastructure. Diamond mines in the Northwest Territories appear as isolated craters, but are deeply embedded in systems of governance, labor, and environmental harm. Cartographic representations frame the Arctic as remote, empty, and resource-rich, obscuring Indigenous presence and reinforcing settler colonial logics. Drawing on Susan Leigh Star’s concept of infrastructure as relational, the analysis surfaces how extractive systems operate through erasure and spectacle. Archival maps and mining imagery reveal the spatial ontologies that shape public imagination and normalize exploitation in the circumpolar North.
Category
Landscape Research