Making Mining Good : Tracing the Semiotics of Justification in Mineral Exploration and Mining
Olofsson, Tobias LU
(2025)
In Valuation Studies
12(1).
p.119-119
- Abstract
- What does it mean for a business or industry to be and do good? And who can count themselves within the good economy? This article investigates the justification of goodness in mineral exploration and mining and uses the entwinement between value creation and destruction characteristic of mining to trouble notions of goodness in impactful industries. Based on analyses of indepth interviews, ethnographic fieldnotes, and archival materials, the article follows the ways in which mining industry actors seek to negotiate contradictions between creation and destruction; and does so while using an innovative conceptual framework based in Peircean semiotics to open up justification for analysis of the underlying semiotic machinery that actors rely... (More)
- What does it mean for a business or industry to be and do good? And who can count themselves within the good economy? This article investigates the justification of goodness in mineral exploration and mining and uses the entwinement between value creation and destruction characteristic of mining to trouble notions of goodness in impactful industries. Based on analyses of indepth interviews, ethnographic fieldnotes, and archival materials, the article follows the ways in which mining industry actors seek to negotiate contradictions between creation and destruction; and does so while using an innovative conceptual framework based in Peircean semiotics to open up justification for analysis of the underlying semiotic machinery that actors rely on to signify goodness. Mobilizing this conceptual toolkit, the article investigates how miners and explorers emphasize certain values, or signs, over others and how values are used to assert that some mines and miners do more good than others. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/a01a34c6-36fa-4918-904d-0aaab2df0991
- author
- Olofsson, Tobias
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-02-26
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Valuation Studies
- volume
- 12
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 142 pages
- publisher
- Linköping University Electronic Press
- ISSN
- 2001-5992
- DOI
- 10.3384/VS.2001-5992.2025.12.1.119-142
- project
- Show & Tell: Scientific representation, algorithmically generated visualizations, and evidence across epistemic cultures
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a01a34c6-36fa-4918-904d-0aaab2df0991
- date added to LUP
- 2025-02-26 12:09:18
- date last changed
- 2025-04-04 15:19:35
@article{a01a34c6-36fa-4918-904d-0aaab2df0991,
abstract = {{What does it mean for a business or industry to be and do good? And who can count themselves within the good economy? This article investigates the justification of goodness in mineral exploration and mining and uses the entwinement between value creation and destruction characteristic of mining to trouble notions of goodness in impactful industries. Based on analyses of indepth interviews, ethnographic fieldnotes, and archival materials, the article follows the ways in which mining industry actors seek to negotiate contradictions between creation and destruction; and does so while using an innovative conceptual framework based in Peircean semiotics to open up justification for analysis of the underlying semiotic machinery that actors rely on to signify goodness. Mobilizing this conceptual toolkit, the article investigates how miners and explorers emphasize certain values, or signs, over others and how values are used to assert that some mines and miners do more good than others.}},
author = {{Olofsson, Tobias}},
issn = {{2001-5992}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{02}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{119--119}},
publisher = {{Linköping University Electronic Press}},
series = {{Valuation Studies}},
title = {{Making Mining Good : Tracing the Semiotics of Justification in Mineral Exploration and Mining}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3384/VS.2001-5992.2025.12.1.119-142}},
doi = {{10.3384/VS.2001-5992.2025.12.1.119-142}},
volume = {{12}},
year = {{2025}},
}