Cyborg Natures: Urban Metabolisms and Technological Abstraction of Nature

Introduction

A  young boy, no more than 10 years of age, pounds away at the hard ground  of a quarry in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. His scarred  and numb hands drive a metal bar into limestone looking for black specs;  the only semblance of wealth he knows. Sacks of this sifted material  are carried by these boys who are nearly dwarfed by their size and mass.  Along a journey of many days, these miners push to make what small  profits they can following extortion by local authorities and guerillas  while fighting off starvation, illness, and injury. These piles of rock  are sold at local markets and are quickly processed for transport to  larger centers of commerce where Western demand for these resources is  ravenous. Many of these initial sales points are so remote that planes  are needed to bring supplies in and carry the mineral out as there are  no roads for days in any direction. Within each node of this resource’s  path, a cut of profit is taken and the final sales price rises. This  rock makes it to China through European and North American subsidiaries  for placement in manufacturing flows of any number of telecommunication  devices. These production facilities use underpaid labor forces over  long hours to keep the ultimate sales price in foreign markets down,  therefore perpetuating their viability as a nexus for material  production at the cost of many of these laborers’ health and lives.

A  young boy, no more than 10 years of age, awakens on a Christmas morning  to open his presents. In the process of opening his gifts, he incurs  many cuts from the paper and hard plastic packaging to which his parents  are most attentive. His glee at receiving his new smartphone is  followed by a complete social removal from his family as he stares at  and immerses himself in the screen’s inviting glow. Throughout the  following year, the young boy, and many others like him, uses his phone  to engage in social media exchanges, electronic communications, and  even, if ever so seldom, his educational goals. This device goes with  him everywhere in the city, so easily fitting in his pocket as it is  effortlessly light in his hand. Meanwhile, the cellular service  providers in the boy’s city install new towers in strategic locations  while engaging in sharing contracts with other service providers to  ensure the user of any smartphone maintains access. These accesses  (e.g., phone, data, internet, emergency services) are utilized by third  and fourth party vendors to encourage certain types of consumption and  environmental engagement, such as Foursquare or Yelp’s business  services. These are further enabled through the growing number of  sensors embedded deep in these devices that tracks every location and  tilt of the phone’s position as the boy moves through his everyday  spaces. His local city government is complicit with these types of  socio-spatial developments, even integrating itself for access through  and with these telecommunication devices.

These  hypothetical scenarios as outlined above are more than real for the  billions who are exploited in the processes of capital flows directed  into the urban centers of the world for the advantages of mere millions.  These resource flows also bring with them climate and environmental  refugees who are displaced by such activities resulting in a glut of  cheap, expendable labor for capitalists who further the cycles of  extraction from and restructuring of nature in the city. This article is  an exploration of how certain metabolic flows into urban environments  play larger roles in the transformation of urban landscapes due to their  external demand and their critical status within the infrastructures  that perpetuate a certain type of urban technological development. The  flows of coltan into urban and developed portions of the world will act  as an exemplar of how certain technological paradigms drive both the  advancement of particular urban political ecologies and how those  ecologies are dependent on maintaining these uneven geographies.  In these processes, the contradictions between urban socio-economic  processes and local/global capital are exposed as their dynamics result  in a specific form of re-territorialized nature in the city, driving the  despoliation of numerous other natures as these flows touch local  spaces.

Cyborg Natures

Critical  to the understanding of how urban nature is continually restructured by  varying scales of nature and technology, we have to understand how  these relational flows occur based on their forms and interactions.  Swyngedouw(1) points to the metabolic nature of urbanization within  cyborg cities. Within this metabolic nature, he contextualizes cities as networks of socio-ecological processes that are interconnected via flows of material.  These flows span the world, entering and leaving major urban centers  that act as nexuses for localized flows of resources for global  redistribution. In the process, these flows establish circulations that  are perpetually redefining the ways in which nature is urbanized based  on related assemblages and collectives that are socially mobilized via  their materiality in lived spaces(2). To further understand the ways in  which urban socio-ecological conditions structure the relations between  the urban and nature, Kaika and Swyngedouw(3) suggest studies in three  areas: urban metabolism; neoliberalization of urban environments; and  urban environmental imaginaries and discursive formations.

Examining  these through the conceptual lens of shaping urban natures through  technological means, we start to see two initial schemes. First, urban  metabolism as defined by its metabolic circulatory flows and fusing of  the social and physical exhibit varying hegemonic regimes of control and  influence over the transformations and territories set in nature.  Certain conceptions of urban spaces are guided by these circulations and  fusions while also guiding those facets into the future. This is  further complicated as neoliberal globalization  mobilizes these urban transformations for capital flows of material and  wealth to urban centers resulting in varying effects on rural and  remote regions of resource wealth. The consequences of which are  massively uneven geographic developments in regions with the urban  centers as their key expressions. This begs for particular imaginaries  to be forwarded that resolve the emergent contradictions between nature  and the city through rationalized symbolic logic for these dynamically  changing spaces of crisis.

The  second scheme takes the propositions of Kaika and Swyngedouw(3) and  juxtaposes the pervasive technological layer as the primary vector of  critique. Urban metabolism, in terms of circulations and fusions of  material, social, and physical spaces, are compressed in time and space  through relations to the neoliberalized environments of urban spaces(4).  This  is due to the nature in which capital, within neoliberal globalization,  seeks persistent growth and over-accumulation resulting in an inherent,  critical crisis to the system itself(5). The displacements of  this crisis are perpetually being fought out in the battle between the  (re)development of nature in and surrounding urban spaces. The resultant  imaginaries are ones that increasingly attempt to find technological  fixes to these spatial crises, but in and of themselves are symbols and  driver of the same processes of disruption and crisis-driven  exploitation.

These  hybrid natures of cities are growing increasingly complex and are  difficult to find appropriate imaginaries for their symbolization,  contextualization, and ultimate resolutions. This is costly both in  terms of human life and the stresses that are being placed on the  natural environment. While  we address the issues of natural resource extraction, such as natural  gas and crude oil, we fail to address the increasingly problematic state  of our use of technology that attempts to fight these environmental  injustices, but perpetuates new kinds of injustices in the process.  I assert this is due to our inability to break from the overarching  systems of capitalism that have become embedded in our mindsets and  critical cognition towards any given solution set. While we attempt to  resolve issues of international trade of coltan through certification of  mineral sourcing, we paradoxically use the digital devices that use  those very minerals, frequently illegally sourced, in the process of  determining the appropriate courses of action(6).

Cities/Natures: Tropes of Urban Imaginaries, Natural Conceptions, and Cyborg Self

Much  of the issue at hand is due to numerous hybridizations occurring  simultaneously in urban spaces in relation to nature. First, we have the  human relation to urban nature through the conceived architectures  which surround the human; guided by the human conception and its coeval  of cyclical perception of urban spaces(7). We then have the  hybridization of nature via the human for the utility within both the  physical urban space and its ideological counterpart as perpetuated by  social constructions of those natures. As explored by Shaw(8), this  hybrid space is one of further abstraction, removing those who pass  through them in everyday life. In the worst case, this space is one in  which the human within their socio-ecological paradigm sees nature as  something to be harnessed, controlled, and ultimately exploited for that  paradigm’s utility. This reinvention of nature, as pointed to by  Haraway(9), results in spaces of exploitation and conflict as the  actions driving the hybridization expose the persistent contradictions  which must persistently be hidden and fixed(7,4).

One  way in which these contradictions are masked is through increasing  complication of constructed urban spaces and their metaphorical  constructions(10). The hybridization and emergent contradictions, such  as increased isolation of disadvantaged urban communities, establish  regimes of cyborg realities in which the processes of hybridization  diffuse the contradictions into unevenly developed spaces. Ergo, the  infrastructure and constructions of spaces reflect the contradictions,  resulting in the very real conditions found in disadvantaged communities  in urban spaces. Gandy(10) bring up four points that are critical in  understanding the relationship between urban spaces, nature, and the  humans’ everyday lives. First, is the concept of endo-colonization in  the human body is dominated by the processes of hybridization into the  cyborg self. The second concept is that of agency within the cyborg  condition, in which the hybrid space dictates the levels of human  autonomy through the spaces construction and socio-ecological  restrictions. These concepts then setup the conditions for the third  concept of phantom spaces which allows the perpetuation of the  creative-destruction through the forth concept, virtual/concrete spatial  constructions.

This  process of harnessing nature through domination of the mind and body,  both individual and social collective, is key to understanding the  simultaneous ways in which flows of raw materials can enter and leave  urban concentrations without considerations of origination or the  ethical legacy of resource consumption. Kinsley’s(11) critique of  Mitchell’s Me++: The Cyborg Self the Networked City  points to the undeniable link between the mind and body in both  building the city and the processes of constructing/harnessing nature in  the process. This critique also pointed out the persistent Western  opinions that dominate this and many other discourses on urban  ecological issues. This is a critical trope as it projects the sense of  universal consideration while resulting in certain levels of  subject-based and regional erasures, though unintentional as it  sometimes may be. Grove(12) suggests that these inequities should be  addressed by contextualizing the urban political ecologies within  dialogues of critical post-structuralism to expose the dynamics of  knowledge/power in hybridization of urban spaces and the struggles of  socio-ecological exclusions via the focus on the non-human as the site  of spatial identity. This aspect of urban/nature dynamics is drawn out  in Deakin & Allwinkle’s(13) critique of Mitchell’s e-topia,  in which the issue of ecology and equity are eschewed in the process of  demonstrating how certain technological regimes can guide spaces to a  certain types of sustainable urban development while the methodological  gaps and technological focus largely overlook the inability of these  proposals to solve current issues of inequity and uneven development. In  addition, e-topia fails to address how new technological and sustainability disruptions create new, more damaging forms of unevenness.

We  will briefly explore these above concepts through the work of Bell(14)  on water infrastructures as location for reform and resistance in the  relations between people, technology, and the city. In this, Bell  focuses on critical categories of change in urban water infrastructure  in order to synthesize key insights of how urban infrastructure is  affected by the application of technological fixes. To this end,  Bell(14) show hesitation as said technological fixes and their perceived  inevitability demonstrate the potential to reinforce systems of  domination over nature, people, and the urban spaces in which they live;  this furthers the divide in terms of environmental justice and digital  divide via these new and resurgent cyborg spaces. This drives Bell’s  appeal to conceive systems of equity through smart urban designs that  are sensitive to these dynamics, often fragile balances within  socio-ecological systems of politics and economics, in the arena of  water sustainability.

This  study by Bell(14) encompasses many areas of urban political ecology,  cyborg spaces, and the conflicts that arise within and between their  mutual concepts. However, this study also points out the ultimate  contradictions within the Western context that begs for new levels and  forms of socio-political engagement. The appeal to pursue Bell’s Water  Sensitive Urban Design does advance a new, radical approach to  urban/nature relations, but one that is still persistently uneven and  focused within the localized, occidental positions of power/knowledge  that leave little rooms for application or considerations outside those  spaces. This form of design depends heavily on two areas of progress:  political discourse and technical innovation. These two areas are  heavily dependent on flows of capital and flows of human consent  entailing a heavy dependency of socio-economic regimes found within  local spaces which are unique unto those constructions. This often means  that the politics and innovations are built looking inward toward  systems of support rather than globally via systems of compassion and  consideration to the flows of resources supporting these endemic system.  This leaves exploited coltan miners and underpaid factory workers at  the mercy of systems that develop sustainability with their overt  domination as a key component. This environmental justice must be  answered and contested if an equitable form of sustainable urban  development is to be achieved. The next section will explore the  processes of obfuscation and possible avenues of progress in the areas  of justice and development through exposing the tropes of technology,  nature, and the city via their abstractions.

Abstraction via Technology: from contradiction to differentiation

Newell  & Cousins(15) elaborate on the limitations of urban metabolism in  examination of the processes that not only conceptualize, but  perpetually reconstruct the city. From this study, they describe three  ecologies as both constituent and insufficient in the understanding of  how urban spaces are conceived. The Marxist ecological approach of  socio-natures is married with industrial ecologies of flows and urban  ecologies of socio-ecological systems in order to draw out the  political-industrial complex that drives urban ecology through its  establishment of boundaries. These boundaries are metaphorical  constructs that often manifest themselves in spaces through numerous  means and interactions between the flows of materials and energies into  and from nature which is both living connector to the human and abstract  resource for their conceptions of space (urban and elsewhere).

This  is deeply suggestive of Lefebvre’s(7) ideas on the production of space  as one that is resultant from a combination of numerous relations  between the perceptions of individuals and societies, their conceptions  as manifest in the architecture of the city which influences and is  influenced by the perceptions, and the lived spaces of everyday life for  the individual at their many scales. Lefebvre(7) focused on these  regimes of production in urban centers and did so initially from a  Marxist perspective. Though his approach is openly acknowledged as  Eurocentric, it does hold some weight in terms of its persistent  influence in modern day. In addressing Newell & Cousins’(15) first  point, Marx(16) focused on the means of production within the modes of  capitalist production, critiquing the models as proposed by Adam Smith  and David Ricardo in that the abstraction of nature is the means by  which control is established, but also how critical crisis emerges in  the capitalist system. This is due to the conception of nature as an  infinite pool of resources to be extracted from so that the modes of  production can move forward producing profit from the exploitation of  labor and their socially necessary labor time(17). This back and forth  between production for profit and the application of fixes is often  found in the push for innovative technologies to answer the issues  inherent to the capitalist mode of production. Harvey(4) finds this  dynamic in his proposition of time-space compression. In this process,  primary nodes in the flow of materials and energy are given the means by  which to accelerate the processes of (re)appropriation while masking  the space in between the nodes as shrunken distance, furthering the  opportunities and conditions for spatial injustice. Massey(18) furthers  this critique in stating these processes are simultaneous and in a  spectrum of multiple trajectories that not only cause evolutionary  interactions between these spaces, but does so in such as way that suits  the conception of time over space in capitalist systems. Though  Massey’s later work was more theoretically grounded and focused on  gender issues, these themes can be seen in her work on power  geometries(19). Graham(20) points to the above conditions in his study  on the projected erasure of borders due to technologically-enabled urban  centers that in turn used technologies to shrink distances, increase  flows of resources, and perpetuate spatial injustice through and as a  byproduct of these processes. In all, the relationship between urban  environments and nature are in a continual process of transformation and  growth while simultaneously in a continual struggle for equity of  access to the flows that enter and leave the numerous spaces of the  cyborg city.

The  technology, in turn, has evolved in numerous ways to both accommodate  and combat against these regimes of dominance over nature in the urban  spaces of the world. Kitchin & Dodge(21) point to the processes and  scales of code/spaces in which software and human space co-evolve as a  result of their mutual interactions. This results in an embedded  condition of technology in all aspects of the production of spaces.  Perceptions of space are formed through numerous devices, such as smart  phones and computers, which are then used in the process of conceiving  and building of urban environments. The everyday lived spaces of people  are complicit in these processes as many have either ceded to their  hegemonic conditions or were born into this dominant technological  paradigm. This leaves little space for consideration of technologies’  effects on nature as nature has taken on any number of cyborg forms  begging the question as to what nature is to who and why.

This  is once again an advantage of urban spaces that have the means and  capital to accumulate technologies for ubiquitous usage amongst the  urban space’s population. For many other locations, these technological  advantages leave them at the mercy of those who are willing to give them  the means by which to connect and expose their spatial injustices.  Lehdonvirta(22) states there is the potential for emergent forms of  alternative economy in the age of technological innovation, but these  would once again depend on largely Western-led efforts to enable  disadvantaged populations with the means by which to help themselves.  The ultimate trope of these notions is in the addressing of core issues;  we provide technology and training to focus on a certain array of  spatial injustice without asking or addressing the issues that brought  us to them in the first place. The reason we cannot is that addressing  larger spatial injustices in Africa, Latin America, and the like would  draw out the critical crises in capital: endless compound growth;  capitals exploitative relation to nature; and universal alienation of  people(5). As much as the Western nations wish to help in providing  technology and education to these nations, they fail to see the need to  educate themselves in how what they do in their everyday lives is  actually the root cause of the disadvantaged populations of the world.  In this sentiment, setting up schools with quality education in America  is just as crucial in solving the problems of the Democratic Republic of  Congo as building of schools in North Kivu. Everyone must be aware of  these systems if a global/local nexus of social consciousness is to be  achieved.

The Flows of Coltan and Urban Landscapes

The  nature of coltan and the nature of urban spaces are not so far removed.  When time and space are compressed, the efficiencies of flows and their  inherent crises go hand-in-hand into and out of numerous landscapes. As  we explored with the boys’ journeys, the practices of one drives the  actions in the spaces of the other. There are surely nodes in between  these two end points, but their effects are no less tangible on the  cumulative effects experienced at their ends. Conflict minerals are not  just isolated to diamonds and coltan; wars over oil and natural gas are  all to recent in the minds of many around the world. However, there are  ones, such as coltan, that go largely unseen, but have immense impacts  on everyday life in advantaged nations which push international agendas  in economics and politics. Bleischwitz et al.(6) sees the pursuit of  transparency, certification, and accountability for conflict minerals as  only a starting point for spaces that have far deeper political and  socio-ecological paradigms. Bleischwitz et al. elaborates on the  intensity and difficulty in coltan mining, with its many dangers in a  still violent conflict zone, as it enters the largely secretive tantalum  industry. In the processes of mining, the minerals are manually  extracted from the earth and transported via foot. In route, “taxes” are  paid to armed groups or military officials at check points before  miners sell their goods to local buyers for very little. These minerals  are then sent through numerous channels into the main distribution  centers of Goma and Bukavu where they are prepared, sold, and shipped to  neighboring countries, such a Rwanda, where the metals are sent to Asia  for refinement, packaging as components, and placed into any number of  electronics for global sales(6). At every stage the price goes up and  the profits never see the tiers beneath it. Smith(23) points to the  paradoxical nature of this mineral trade as it is a symbol of economic  progress for those who are simultaneously exploited in its extraction  and trade. Ekmen(24) points to this “Dutch Disease” as one of the key  linkages between violent conflicts related to this illicit resource  trade and continual struggles over the mineral wealth demanded by  Western markets. In many cases, profits continue to fund conflicts which  make regulation and certification of such minerals near impossible.  Much of the transparency, certification, and regulatory efforts rest on  the shoulders of local and state governments in the DRC and Rwanda, who  are already in debt to the IMF and World Bank with minimal assistance  from the UN in matters of illicit trade (this is in part due to funding,  but also do to corruption). This leaves the avenues of trade and  consumption of illicit minerals open for markets in China and Rwanda  where profits continue to be made with the participation of Western  trade subsidiaries who arrange and profit from international trade  agreements.

Since  the 1970s, the US. and China began a trade relationship that would  benefit a very select number of global markets. Due to the displacement  of productive forces in the US to China, the disciplining of two labor  forces occurred. Organized labor in US slowly fell apart while cheap  labor in China was disciplined in a manner reminiscent of the early  industrial revolution. This meant that flows of capital in the opposite  direction would cost less resulting in higher consumption rates.  However, the processes of these flow is not nearly that simple. This  displacement also meant that responsibility for ethical consideration of  raw resources, both natural and human, could be relegated to the spaces  in between the nodes of production. This is where the coltan miners,  factory workers, and other exploited labor forces are placed in the name  of lower cost consumer goods and increased efficiencies in the market  place for higher profits. The technology then becomes both the symbol of  opportunity and mark of subjugation.

These  disruptions have had intense effects on urban landscapes. Over a very  short time, urban populations in the Western nations have been  disciplined by technologies in work, home, and in everyday life. The end  use of much technology goes toward accelerated communications,  monitoring, and data aggregation on every aspect of daily life that can  be measured. Technological fixes are even being developed for the most  qualitative aspects of life; namely emotions and human thought. These  opportunities are only afforded to those who cannot only access and use  this technology, but control the means by which it is implemented in the  space and place. This means that “NIMBY” and immanent domain issues are  quickly expanding to the realm of ICT infrastructure in the city. The  utility of the user is only one half of the paradigm in which the  public-private nexus sees these as a means of monitoring and regulation  through any number of mechanisms.

Due  to the numerous socio-economic divides felt in urban spaces, these  flows effect urban landscapes uniquely, but in many ways uniformly. Technologies,  enabled by conflict minerals, can do much to draw attention to social  and spatial injustice in disadvantaged, minority centers in the city.  In fact, there have been many example of governments and corporations  responding to such collective actions. But while we use those devices  here as an exemplar of successful social activism, we fail to support  other populations who suffer moreover due to the means by which the  aforementioned social activism occurred. At the same time, the divide  facilitates ignorance in that the miner never knows of the modes of  production or the use of their labor; they only know that these rocks  will help feed their families for another day.

This  is one of many stories in the exploration of how certain metabolic  flows affect urban development based on particular technological  regimes. As we become more integrated into the techno-urban landscapes  that we both create and are shaped by, we must be proactive in guiding the means and manners in which these spaces are built;  sensitive to the flows that enter and leave the systems upon which we  depend. Coltan is one of hundreds of exemplars of resources that  invisibly shape these space and would have detrimental effects on those  spaces if it were to be removed. This is where consumer awareness must  play a larger role in the urban environments’ relations to nature and  society. Many of the above examples and studies offer largely untenable  solutions because the fail to curb the demand from markets for materials  that use minerals and other raw resources, extracted from nature, in  manners which ultimately lead to the exploitation of people and  degradation of nature writ large. This is also due to the fact that  international organizations have not given local and informal economies  enough incentive to stop or viable alternatives to their current revenue  streams funded by illicit material trade. This paradigm, layered with  abstracted layers of corruption throughout the nodes in material and  energy flows, is experienced unevenly as its simultaneous and dynamic  natures adapt to changes in restriction and drastic change, ensuring  current modes of production are not interrupted. Any significant change  must first address the cores systemic crises of capitalism in its  neoliberal globalized form before progress in assisting conflict mineral  trades can truly be addressed. Otherwise, the flows will continue to  puddle in the urban landscapes, stained with the marks of injustice.

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