User:Username89713/Necropolitics

Social issues are closely tied with necropolitics and are often linked as common victims. Racism has already been established as one of the factors that determine who is subjugated to living in areas of the living dead. Another important group that is more susceptible to living in these conditions are those that are financially disadvantaged. There is a clear correlation to those that are in need of work and as a result have to live in a life or death environment for their survival.

Author Martin Arboleda of Planetary Mine, references Members definition of necropolitics and relates his ideas of “bodies of extraction” to the concept of extractivism. People who work on sites of extraction often live in conditions that are not suitable for human life. They are frequently endangered but are confined to their roles because they are the only opportunities available for people in those poor areas. The extraction industry is prone to unequal treatment towards the workers because of their desperation. People who are desperate will work in any conditions and are therefore restrained to these dangerous conditions. There is also little opportunity to protest since so many people are in this demographic, it is easy for workers to be replaced. There is no safety net for workers who live like this, meaning an effective protest requires mass unity leaving the exploiting companies at a shortage of workers or relying on a more powerful external force to provide help.

Mbembe uses the term “bodies of extraction” to explain how people who live in these areas are used for their material value and exploited for their labor. They are only pawns of the greater extraction industry. This concept has been going on since the Atlantic Slave trade, a topic Mbembe uses as the origins of his theory. People who have been used for their monetary value without any consideration of their welfare constitute a body of extraction.

An example of necropolitics in an extraction site in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Arboleda studies this region and explores the social issues that surround it. Areas of necropolitics within Atacama are referred to by the locals as “zonas de sacrificio” or translated sacrifice zones. Arboleda describes these zones as environmentally detrimental and littered with dangerous pollution problems. The air, water, and noise pollution pose serious threats to everyone living in and around mining towns. Antogasta, a mining town in Chile, has had studies conducted which have displayed 19 heavy metals in residents blood and urine samples.