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The global uranium rush and its Africa frontier. Effects, reactions and social movements in Namibia (2012)

Auteur	Marta Conde, Giorgos Kallis
	5-63-0-00-25.pdf
Datum	mei 2012
Classificatie	5.63.0.00/25 (NAMIBIË - ALGEMEEN)
Voorkant

The global uranium rush and its Africa frontier. Effects, reactions and social
movements in Namibia
Marta Conde a,*, Giorgos Kallis b
a ICTA, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, 08193 Bellatera, Barcelona, Spain
b ICREA, ICTA, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, ETSE, 

Article history:
Received 1 July 2011
Received in revised form 15 March 2012
Accepted 16 March 2012
Available online 8 May 2012

A B S T R A C T
Uranium mines are the often forgotten source of nuclear power. This article studies 
impacts and social movements at a uranium mining frontier looking at the interaction 
between the global social metabolism, industrial dynamics and local ecologies of 
resistance. Namibia, the world’s fourth largest producer of uranium, stands at the 
vanguard of the global uranium rush with 66 granted prospecting licenses and two
 operating mines. We focus on three generic attributes that help to explain the 
emergence and intensity of resistance by local communities to uranium mining: the
ecology and geography of the resource; the degree and type of political and 
economic marginalisation of the community; and crucially, the connection and 
integration of local concerns with broader social movements and political demands. 
We show with the use of empirical material how these factors play out differently 
in five Namibian communities that have been, or stand to be, affected by uranium
 mining, and explain how local ecologies of resistance shape, or fail to shape, 
the global uranium rush. Our work offers an example of an integrative approach 
for the analysis of the global–local dynamics of environmental change in relation 
to the extraction and flow of the essential materials that fuel industrial 
economies.