development is often just extraction under a new name

Scarcity and Power: The Geopolitics of Resource Extraction

This second panel took a different scale, exploring the extractive systems that have long defined our political, ecological, and economic landscapes.

Some key takeaways:

• Resource extraction is deeply personal. The panellists spoke from experience, coming from places like Lebanon, Mauritius, and Chile, where extraction is part of daily life and history.
• Ecological degradation is still justified for capital gain. “Development” is often just extraction under a new name.
• Ecological reparations must go beyond restoration. They must be about who controls land, who profits, and who heals.
• The question is: Can extraction ever lead to peace, or only conflict? What role do designers play in imagining new, reparative futures?

Speakers included:
🔸 Mále Uribe Forés – on mining residues and narratives in Chile.
🔸 Shiraz Bayjoo – on colonial extraction in the Indian Ocean.
🔸 Bridget Storrie – on resources, conflict, and peace.
🔸 Shereen Doummar – on Lebanon’s post-traumatic ecological repair.

↠ Together, both talks raised one shared, urgent question:
How do we design for justice, dignity, and care across generations, across borders, and across ecosystems?