Authors

Mamontova Nadezhda¹;  ¹ Turku Institute of Advanced Studies, Finland

Discussion

This presentation proposes to discuss the role of geological maps in the production and conceptualisation of ‘resources’ in Soviet Russia, with the focus on the debates among leading Soviet geologists on the essence of geological matter and the ways of its cartographic imagination. It further examines the relations between mapping and geopower regarding how disagreements in interpretations of the earth history, based on country-specific regimes of geological knowledge production, have stimulated recent debates over the borders, resources, and power control in the Arctic and Siberia. The research argues that the Soviet version of geopower, rooted in the idea of mineral resources as a substantial component of the national geo-body, was intertwined with the Marxist idea of reshaping the environment though human-technology agency that was largely performed through the mediation of geological mapping as a specific form of ‘environmental subjectivity’. This understanding is still relevant and utilised in policy making decisions over resource exploitation.