Articulating sedimented subjectivities: Extractive subject formation in eastern DRC

In this contribution, we examine how people living around industrial gold mining concessions in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) view themselves in relation to the extractive industries. We apply Hall’s notion of articulation to grasp the layering of extractive subject formation in time and space, or what we call the “sedimentation of subjectivities”. The lens of articulation allows for a better understanding of how people engage with the subject positions they are interpellated into. Specifically, it helps uncover how this engagement is imprinted by subjects’ socio-economic position and historically shaped forms of social identification. The notion of sedimentation, in turn, enables us to trace how the crystallization of subjectivities in one particular conjuncture influences subsequent processes of subject formation – a dynamic with distinct spatial dimensions. People’s sense of place, including how they relate to the soil and subsoil, is an important vector of these historical influences. In sum, the notion of sedimented subjectivities captures the spatio-temporal dimensions of subject formation over the longue durée. It therefore helps establish the enduring influence of “colonial residue” on contemporary subject formation. In addition, our approach sheds further light on the overall modest imprint of the governmental schemes of extractive corporations on extractive subject formation. We ascribe this to the heterogeneity and sedimentation of the elements that shape subject formation and the dispersed nature of processes of interpellation. These observations further underscore the pertinence of a spatio-temporal perspective on subject formation.