The Buried Wait
Invisible thread,
Down below.
In silence, we wait,
For our hunger to grow.
A thumping footfall,
We mobilize, we crawl.
At human feet we reach,
As on your scraps, we must leech.
Generation 1 (2004-2047)
CLIMATE
Elle Marainen: "In the Name of Extractivism, We Collapse"
2047-01-24
This is an opinion piece in Dagens Nyheter. The author is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.
The smell of mold is a comfort for me. As I think about the years that have passed, I tend to drown in a deep, bottomless feeling of resentment, but the smell of mold that now covers the entire town tells me that I was right all along. At the risk of losing readers by this very first phrase; I claim that Kiruna, my hometown, the territory of my ancestors, is on the verge of collapse. I knew it early, perhaps before anyone else living above the ground surface, and they have tried to silence me for about forty years now, ever since I made my underground discovery. I am turning 86 this year and I have nothing else to lose, so I will speak true of what it is that happened all those years ago.
In 2004, I was brought in as a researcher in a crew of biologists, geologists, and other specialists to investigate what seemed to be one of the most significant bodies of iron ore discovered in Sweden. To stick to national and international environmental regulations, we had to do tests of pollution in the water and soil to monitor the environmental impact of the mining area. The state-owned Kiruna Mining AB (KMAB) wanted to start digging as soon as possible because it was indeed a precious resource.
I was a young researcher back then, specializing in microbiological ecologies and symbiotics in soil close to and within large bodies of minerals. In mining, it is a common process and a requirement in many countries to investigate what else is underneath the ground besides the mineral or metal targeted for extraction, and what consequences that extraction may have on the ecologies that surround it. For the mining company, this is mostly a process of finding out the pureness of the mineral to decide its value. To me, it is a way to understand what kind of world you are entering before starting to extract the mineral. I must say, I was surprised when they brought me in, only to later not give attention to my discoveries. They just wanted that one mineral, and once it was extracted, they would leave. I suppose my name and title carried some authority and prestige in the community. It sounded good on the report that was meant to ensure that the expansion of the mine didn't threaten biological diversity
As many of my readers know by now, there were a few problems along the way. Firstly, the city center of Kiruna was built upon that very mineral source, and secondly, as I was advancing in my investigations, I found an organism living together with the mineral that would change my life and transform the world as we know it.
Moving people around to enable extractivism was nothing new, not to KMAB, nor the Swedish government, and especially not to the Sámi people, my people, who have been driven away from so many places by now to make way for settler colonialism and economic growth. As we are in times of climate disaster, I have made my voice heard over the years. Arguing against limitless extractivism and criticizing the green transition, the campaign that has been selling us the idea of how green steel and electrification are the best solutions to the climate crisis. A campaign that explains that more economic growth could lead us in the right direction and that the market could solve the problems it has created. I remember what they said when the new Kiruna was finished in 2035: "Climate optimism and jobs for everyone. Kiruna leads the way to the future!"
It took a long time for some politicians to admit that we indeed are in a climate crisis, but today no one can deny it. Places on the earth are no longer liveable for humans because of drought and heat. The water and air are contaminated. Refugees have flocked en masse to Kiruna due to the high demand for labor in the mines. However, since the town was not built for high population rates, camps of provisory housing are now surrounding the city. Everybody wants a part of the new Kiruna.
The story of Kiruna is a story of land and place, above and underneath the ground's surface. The expansion of the mine and the opening of other mines in the region were necessary for the transition to a more "sustainable" future. The notion of home in Northern Sweden was ripped apart. We made way, once again, for the extraction of natural resources. The moving was not a process of a town changing, but a city that was being destroyed and another one being built. And what a city they built! It was envisioned as a high-tech model city with the ecological resonance of the "ideal town." Futuristic visions of an ideal community were used, once more, to transition from a critical moment of disruption.
But they had to give us something in return. The city from which I write this article today is colored in earthy tones, with shiny electrical airborne lifts connecting different parts of the town. Flat screens broadcast imagery of forests that no longer exist. Nature-based solutions such as vertical gardens of modified plants, and rain parks are supposed to absorb the toxins from the contaminated rain. It was envisioned as a winter city, with trails for cross-country skiing all around, but over the past 20 years, not a single snowflake has fallen on Kiruna. It's all grey and wet, uncomfortably warm for the Kiruna-born, lovely for people fleeing the boiling south.
I got fired for not wanting to let go of what I found living together with the iron ore—a kind of mycelium covering the entire mineral body they wanted to extract. I had never seen anything like it, and it urgently required further research to be done, but everyone else seemed to see it as a waste of resources and a threat to the expanding business. And so that is how I, too, became a threat to the production.
Everything seemed well to the average human. In 2040, due to all the so-called sustainable technological advancement of the city, Kiruna was awarded the title of Green European City of Climate Optimism (GECCO). I saw my neighbors walking with pride. Finally, all the eyes were on the North. For me, this was a great opportunity to highlight the social and ecological disaster in this city and what the general longing for constant economic growth led to. The Sámi resistance had grown since the government eased the regulations on mining. With the mining, the water got contaminated, forests were taken down, and people were driven away. It was all done and covered up with a false facade of green evolution and progress. We all knew it was a fraud, but you needed to have your hopes in something, right?
Back then, more than forty years ago, when I first started my career as a researcher I would never have called myself an activist. I had left my cultural heritage behind to pursue a career and follow an interest I had never thought of as political.
The mold runs through my veins now. It is happening. The mycelium I found living together with the iron ore is spreading. We interrupted the symbiosis, the balance, with our extractivist logic. It is now, in the name of extractivism, that we collapse.
When treating life as a commodity, giving value to some and not to others, what happens to the ones you do not see?
Do you see it now?
Continue reading here.
This speculative fiction was created in the context of the Biosocial Ethics course (2023) at Malmö University. Based on Donna Haraway's Camille Stories, it spans several generations into the future to explore issues of extractivism, the right to land, and ways of "staying with the trouble" in an effort to bring about a multispecies society.
By Alice Wästberg.
In collaboration with Merle Emrich, Christophe Berbeć and Anne Leupen; with poetry by Anne Leupen.
Cover image created by AI.