Op-Ed

Neocolonialism, Labour, and Resources. New Realities of Extractive Obesity.

By: Fas Lebbie

I still remember clinging with all my strength to my mother’s chest as she ran from my village in Yengema, Sierra Leone. I watched the town recede into the distance through the dust my mother kicked up behind us. When the rebels’ trucks pulled in, we were still close enough to hear the screech of tires and the gunshots ringing out through the air. My escape with my mom prevented the chilling potential of being forced to join the thousands of child soldiers populating the ranks of the rebel armies. Fleeing my village was the first stage of my exodus from Africa, forced out by conflicts over natural resources, specifically diamonds.

Unfettered extraction of resources relies upon the destabilization of African localities that become sacrifice zones. In the name of “progress,” surviving within the global economic system requires ecological and social compromise, leaving African communities with the existential threat of collapse. The fallacy of progress is sold in through modernity by the global north to the global south. The desire for scale originating during the industrial revolution continues now in the age of technological commerce, driving most transnational mega-corporations in the practice of extractive obesity that has resulted in the exploitation of natural resources and labor.

Formal colonialism, which ceremonially began with the Berlin Congo Conference of 1884, has ended, but neocolonial fractal supply chains of exploitation continue to gut Africa of its mineral wealth to support the needs of industrial societies.

As artisans at the bottom of fractal supply chains, diamond miners work in inhumane conditions pursuing diamonds and receiving a fraction of the value. Mines pose an immediate risk to miners’ lives and the health of local communities. While the Kamituga gold mine in South Congo was in operation, it released cyanide and mercury into the surrounding ecosystem until operations stopped in 2020, when the mine collapse killed 50 miners.

Natural resources are refined, processed, and turned into everyday materials. When some of these materials reach the end of their lives, they return to regions of Africa that bring the second cycle of ecological damage. Colossal e-dumps scar much of the West African landscape, with 85% of the dumped products being exported from West Africa originally. The scale of this waste disposal in Africa is frightening, with Ghana producing 38,000 tons of e-waste but receiving 18,300-60,000 million tons every year.

The natural resource and labor exploitation of supply chains and e-waste dumping have been justified by the quest for profits reinforced by perceptions of the colonized as “othered” based on racial origin. Transnational companies have defined the African population as sacrificial zones whose lives are less important than profits within this framework. It has been 137 years since the Berlin Congo Conference where the sharing of African resources without Africans’ consent ceremonially began, and Africa is still “at the dinner table being eaten by the superpowers.”

Extractive capitalism shows no signs of disappearing because our lives have been choreographed around technological consumption. Natural resources are now fundamental for our needs.

Tech firms continue the practice of extractive obesity by treating us as “operators” to generate data for “service as product” in the technological commerce industry. The extraction of data from users originates from the tech boom of the early 2000s. The new “information superhighway” allowed unprecedented quantities of data to be processed that could be sold to advertisers or leveraged to improve services. Human practices became “internal natural resources” for infinite extraction, dehumanizing us in our interactions with devices. Our devices are “disembodied listening agents” that listen to every word we say, logging every interaction and using them to improve the algorithms in a constantly developing device.

Once gathered, manufacturers use our data without our consent that has systemic ramifications. Humans, a startup based in London, has developed job interview technology to “spot the emotional expressions of prospective candidates and match them with personality traits.” Companies can discount candidates who unknowingly display the “wrong” emotions.

Whether in the global south or north, transnational extractivist corporations rely on the exploitation through depersonalization of those laboring within them. In the global south, racially prejudiced depersonalization of those in sacrifice zones justifies natural resource extraction. Depersonalization for data extraction affects all of us. The treatment of us as “operators” of technology positions us as laborers within data extractivist systems. Tech companies aim to maximize our labor by designing products that we become addicted to. Addiction has made data extraction a sacrifice zone in its own right, with investigations revealing TikTok addiction as the 3rd most prevalent suicide stressor amongst young people worldwide.

Thankfully, firms are mitigating uncontrolled natural resource extraction on a planetary and individual basis. Diamond industry enterprises such as Lucara diamonds work closely with local communities to ensure profit sharing and minimize ecological harm. They keep mines open only as long as needed and fund projects that tackle food scarcity. In Botswana, 80% of profits from diamond sales are reinvested into the local economy. Closer to home, Affectiva has leveraged deep learning to build the world’s largest database of human emotions. It holds ten million facial expressions from 87 nationalities. Initially used for advertisers, the database is now used in the automotive and education industries to detect when drivers lose concentration. These companies have reframed resources to be community-owned assets used to benefit the people.

Imagining a world without extraction is challenging because human needs are intrinsically dependent on using resources; however, we can meet the imperatives of dismantling exploitative capitalist systems by delivering sustainable resource utilization solutions.

Extractivism manifests differently in every context. Whether it is a Sierra Leonean “half shovel” child miner or the average American TikTok user who opens the app eight times a day, we see the core facets of exploitation manifesting through the displacement of place and self as sacrifice zones. Extractive capitalism drives profits at the expense of the “earth and the body.” The ramification “unlink” us from the planet and our well-being. Radically transforming pre-existing systems without destabilizing necessary extraction is a challenge for all as we march through the 21st Century.

Citation

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