Through an engagement with an emerging strand of critical urban theory that reworks Henri Lefebvre’s notion of ‘planetary urbanisation’, this dissertation explores the complex relation between contemporary forms of resource extraction and processes of capitalist urbanisation. It does so through the case of the Huasco Valley, an erstwhile agrarian region in northern Chile that was comprehensively redesigned and engineered into a mining, energy and agroindustrial hinterland strongly embedded in global networks of production and exchange. The thesis begins by offering a general exploration of the political economy of the 1993-2013 commodity boom, which set the foundations for new institutional, economic and corporate scenarios that led to an explosive rate of industrialisation and urbanisation across remote and rural geographies of Latin America. In the Huasco Valley, this context has translated into socioecological plunder, disruptions in public health, labour precariousness, intraurban displacement, and exponential growth of household debt. On this basis, I suggest that the production of urban space that underlies geographies of extraction is intrinsically uneven and in that sense, symptomatic of a world order dependent on the ongoing fabrication of invisibilised and fractured peripheries that are subservient to the consolidation of a seamless global space for the efficient circulation of commodities. The dissertation then goes on to argue that the existing literature on planetary urbanisation has been insufficiently attentive to questions of labour and production, and this has precluded an analysis of the properly political underpinnings of the complete urbanisation of society. By advancing a materialist conception of history, I focus on labour transformations in the Huasco Valley to illustrate how, besides dispossession and socioecological degradation, the projection of material infrastructures for resource extraction has created the conditions of possibility for radical and emancipatory change. Processes of urbanisation taking place in this valley have not only transformed the built environment and the sphere of reproduction –via institutionalised forms of credit, cultural practices and consumer cultures-, but production itself. Automation, lean production, logistical networks, outsourcing and cybernetic systems, among others, have radically transformed instruments and relations of production, thereby replacing isolation and parochialism with vibrant forms of community, political organisation and metabolic interaction with extra-human natures.

Sweden’s landscapes are all marked by human activities, even in the landscapes today perceived as an untouched wilderness, remains of previous human resource extraction can be found. Historical imprints left in our surroundings speak of past memories and life; this allows us to evoke feelings and connect to a site. These sites are often celebrated as places of value since they store knowledge of our past – landscapes that can speak about us. Today these landscapes are reshaped by industrial machinery and our impact has reached a new global scale. Vast areas are laid to waste, extracted, transformed and finally forgotten. This thesis derives from the study of these types of important territories called landscapes of extraction. The thesis introduces Slite, a small mining town located on Gotland, where the impacts of these industrial Badlands have split both the town and its community in half. It is an investigation of possible scenarios and opportunities for the post-treatment after the industry has left. Furthermore, it is a continuation of my previous research, where concepts and instruments such as Mythology, Planetary urbanization and Reclamation are adapted to post-industrial landscapes (Högberg 2023, 3, 6-7). As a result, this thesis aims to support a reclamation process where these damaged territories can be rediscovered, revalued and reintegrated with the local ecosystem and community. A process that promotes a more productive, sustainable and responsible future for these sensitive but important landscapes. I consider these landscapes key territories, since they allow us to experience the true impact of our own consumption, thus they are essential spaces to fully grasp the consequences of our own usage of resources.

Este artículo discute los procesos de modernización minera que se han dado en Latinoamérica, particularmente en el contexto de una nueva geografía de industrialización tardía cuyo centro gravitacional ha girado hacia las economías del Este asiático. A través de la crítica marxista de la ecología, se pretende explicar la manera en que tanto el territorio como el ser humano se han visto despojados de su especificidad concreta para pasar a ser parte de los poderes enajenados del capital. La intensificación en el uso del suelo que se da tras la robotización y computarización de la actividad minera no solo ha convertido el entorno biogeofísico en un momento constitutivo de las fuerzas de producción: también ha implicado la transformación sistemática de campesinados en muchedumbres que se desempeñan como meros apéndices de los sistemas técnicos de la extracción, o como poblaciones sobrantes. El llamado superciclo de materias primas se inserta de esta manera en una nueva fase de acumulación mundial, cuya determinación concreta es el incremento en la productividad a través de la automatización de la maquinaria y la fragmentación de la subjetividad productiva de la clase obrera internacional. / This article addresses the processes of technological modernization that have taken place in Latin America’s mining industry, especially in the context of a new geography of late industrialization whose gravitational center has shifted towards East Asian economies. Through the Marxist critique of ecology, the paper explains the ways in which both human and nonhuman natures have been emptied of their concrete specificity in order to be transformed into the alienatedpowers of capital. The intensification in land use that has followed the robotization and computerization of large-scale mining has not only reconfigured the biogeophysical environment into a constitutive moment of the forces of production, but also entailed the systematic transformation of peasantries into dispossessed multitudes that act as mere appendages of technical systems of extraction, or as surplus populations. The reorganization of the mining industry into global supply chains requires rethinking extraction beyond primary commodity production, and interrogating its organic unity with the modern mode of production generally considered.

The dominant discourse often presents green growth as a solution to the ongoing environmental and climate crisis. However, it exists an unclear understanding of what green growth means in various contexts. This thesis aims to explore re-industrialization in Northern Sweden as an example of green growth, focusing on understanding the meaning and spatial implications of green growth within the context of Norrland. Tworesearch questions are put forward to study the framing of the re-industrialization and how it reproduces Norrland as space and place. 68 Swedish media articles from 2010 to 2023 covering different geographical scales were selected and processed with a qualitative content analysis method, using framing theory. The results show that reindustrialization in Norrland is framed in plural ways, emphasizing growth and development opportunities as well as concerns for Indigenous rights, human well-being, and justice. The dominant framing reinforces Norrland´s subordination to growth centers, while alternative framings highlight a broader understanding of the region’s multifaceted dimensions, raising questions about equitable distribution and the spatial power dynamics of green growth, moving the discussion away from urban-rural dichotomies. The study contributes to an understanding of the spatial implications of green growth in Norrland, challenging rural-urban dichotomies and highlighting contested values.

The diploma thesis deals with the final urbanization of the planet term from a materialistic point of view. The distribution of freshwater, energy consumption and especially agricultural food production are the basic factors which, together with logistics and demography, form fundamental drivers of material history. The "Malthusian" fear of a situation where the world's population is running out of resources accompanies contemporary rhetoric. The aim of the work is to try to find and explore solutions to the material necessities of humanity and to design organizational principles, systems, urban and architectural solutions.