Material #6: Sand and growth
In this interview, political ecologist Arpita Bisht talks about sand-mining and its intrinsic connection to a growth-obsessed economic system.
The interview introduces Bisht like this:
“After initially focusing on bulk metals like iron ore and copper, she discovered that sand was the most conflict-prone material in India, leading her to further investigate its global significance. Arpita is an expert on sand mining, examining power dynamics in material consumption, distribution, and their societal and geopolitical impacts.”
Sand is the most extracted and traded natural resource other than water. The primary ingredient in concrete, its extraction fuels building booms that are underway, particularly across Asia, Africa and Latin America. Sand and other aggregates are geographically-determined and hard to move long distances. They are often associated with environmental degradation and pollution, the related loss of local livelihoods, and the violence that comes when criminal gangs are involved in its trade.
Scientific American recently shone a light on these dynamics in Morocco, while also lifting up developments in the Kenyan county of Makueni, where the leader of the local sand authority Halinishi Yusuf strengthened governance, demonstrated the benefits to the local community of a controlled approach to sand mining, and was able to stem the violence that had characterized extraction in the county before.
Bisht links sand extraction and its dynamics to rapid urbanization, which in turn is driven by a narrow focus on economic growth: “the coming together of global capital and local elites”, and an easily-exploited workforce migrating to urban areas.
To identify ways forward she explores post-growth and de-growth strategies - such as resource capping - that “can simultaneously address both the reduction of overall throughput and more equitable distribution of aggregates”. The equitable dimension is key, given the striking juxtaposition of expanding mega-infrastructures, luxury real estate and island-building projects alongside continued lack of access to basic housing for so many people.
Bisht also makes a clear appeal that gets to the heart of shifts that are needed in the way the built environment is imagined, designed, and maintained:
“There needs to be an alliance or some kind of discourse between post-growth economics, architects, and urban planners.”
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Through 2024, It’s Material is sharing one use of the word “material” each week, on Tuesdays.
Read Arpita Bisht’s article, which the interview draws from: “Sand futures: Post-growth alternatives for mineral aggregate consumption and distribution in the global south”
Listen to my podcast conversation with Kiran Pereira, who runs the excellent newsletter and website “Sand Stories”.
And check out an earlier newsletter on another resource that is used extensively in building: copper.