Transpositional Geologies
Spectres of Coloniality Published by Kerber.
Edited with text by Sascha Mikloweit. Text by Paul Basu, Charmaine //Gamxamûs, Johannes Giebel, Elizabeth Grosz, Maria-Oo Haihambo, Selby Hearth, Bastian Herbst, Chris Hill, Herbert Jauch, Juuso Ndinolune David Kaluvi, Veripuami Nandee Kangumine, Malina Lauterbach, Helmut Maier, Prince Kamaazengi Marenga I, Saima Nakuti Ndahangwapo, Hidipo Nangolo, Paul O’Kane, Jermaine Solunga, Ellison Tjirera, Kuhepa Tjondu, Samo Tomši?, Kathryn Yusoff. Rock by rock, this dazzling volume invites us to engage with a progressively nuanced reading of geology's history and its lasting colonial legacy If you enter an institutional mineralogical collection, you typically encounter glass cabinets organized by classification systems according to material properties. Yet, each mineral carries with it a history of extraction, destruction, (dis)possession, and global relations. Transpositional Geologies localizes such collections as indices of the afterlife of colonialism and proposes an evolving political geology, reading mineral specimens as objects of “culture” rather than of “nature.” Capturing his five-year artistic engagement and cultural collaboration in Namibia and Germany, Sascha Mikloweit brings together international voices from fields including anthropology, critical theory, geology, history, museum studies, philosophy, poetry, public administration—and the perspectives of boltwoodite, cerussite, or smithsonite. Rock by rock, this exquisitely designed volume invites us to engage with a progressively nuanced reading of geology’s history: its epistemic violence, omissions and racial regimes, and how the lasting residues of its colonial legacies continue to shape our present-day extractive realities.
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