Author Archives: Kirsty Howey

kirstyhowey@hotmail.com
A stack of differently colored folders rest neatly on top of multiple stacks of identical cardboard boxes. Some boxes sit atop a wooden desk, as in an office.

Extractivism en Papier: Chronotopes of Settler-Colonial Capitalism in Australia

Kirsty Howey March 22, 2022

What if the greatest legacy of uranium mining is not its localized radioactive toxicity, but the seemingly mundane set of bureaucratic practices it catalysed? In this post, I reflect on the late 1970s origins of Ranger Uranium Mine located on Mirarr country in remote northern Australia, as revealed in a secret institutional archive. In particular, I focus on the hidden practices that clotted during this timeframe, and how they have structured Indigenous-state extractive relations in Australia ever since. This apparently benign spatiotemporal assemblage of textual, material, and social practices, which I have suggested is a chronotope, is in some ways as insidious as the contamination typically associated with this uranium mine. (read more...)

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A group of people sit in a circle at an academic conference as window washers descend outside.

Choreographies of Magic and Mess: AusSTS in Melbourne and Darwin

Jennifer Macdonald, Cathy Bow, E Schuberg Barnes, Kirsty Howey, leonie norrington, Matthew Campbell, Michaela Spencer August 21, 2019

As the presenter encouraged the academics in the room to consider what it means for nanotechnology to sell itself as ‘magic’, boots appeared outside the window behind him. The presenter was Dr. Declan Kuch from the University of NSW and the occasion was the AusSTS Graduate Workshop, which was held on the 12th floor of Deakin Downtown in Melbourne. The provocation Dr. Kuch presented: ‘who performs the magic and for whom?’, was illuminated by the real time, situated magical performance unfolding behind him, as four high-rise window washers descended, each swiping and cleaning in hypnotic choreography. They wore orange helmets and gloves to keep warm, blue buckets clipped to their belts and bandanas protecting their faces from the water, or perhaps from us, as we smiled and pointed and ogled at their daring feats. It was an STS moment: the physicality of the window washers; the labour/danger dynamic; talk of magic and nanotechnology—science and humanities colliding in a discomforting dance. (read more...)

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