History of Aluminum Production

2006 ◽  
pp. 55-68
Keyword(s):  
Aluminum Production ◽  
History Of

Global Energy Cultures of Speed and Lightness: Materials, Mobilities and Transnational Power

2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 127-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mimi Sheller
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Power Grids ◽  
Figured Worlds ◽  
Aluminum Production ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military

Following aluminum as part of a material culture of speed and lightness, this article examines how assemblages of energy and metals connect built environments, ways of life, and ideologies of acceleration. Aluminum can be theorized as a circulatory matrix that forms an energy culture. Through a discussion of speed and social justice, the history of aluminium-based socioecologies reveals how the materiality of energy forms assemblages of objects, infrastructures, and practices. The article then traces the aluminum industry’s involvement in the production and distribution of energy itself both at the national scale of power grids and in the emergence of transnational transfers of energy, such as hydropowered smelters in Iceland. Finally, this analysis of deeply embedded energy cultures calls for a transnational approach to the accelerated socioecologies of aluminum production and consumption; and for energy transition theories to pay closer attention to the figured worlds and figuring work of the military-industrial complex.

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