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Child labour, cobalt, and the London Metal Exchange : fetish, fixing, and the limits of financialization
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Bernards, Nick (2021) Child labour, cobalt, and the London Metal Exchange : fetish, fixing, and the limits of financialization. Economy and Society . doi:10.1080/03085147.2021.1899659 ISSN 0308-5147.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2021.1899659
Abstract
This article considers the surprising, tentative, emergence of the London Metal Exchange as a quasi-labour regulator following persistent scandals over cobalt mined by child labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It argues that this case offers us a useful window on the limits to financialization. The ‘financialization’ of cobalt here refers to the process by which cobalt has come to be traded as a speculative asset. Such processes have often been understood in terms of a ‘divorcing’ of value from the underlying material form. The persistence of controversies around child labour and cobalt highlights particularly clearly how fraught a process any such divorce is. Theoretically, the article develops these arguments through engagements with Marxian and Science and Technology Studies (STS) literatures on commodification.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HG Finance T Technology > TN Mining engineering. Metallurgy |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > School for Cross-faculty Studies Faculty of Arts > School for Cross-faculty Studies > Global Sustainable Development |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | London Metal Exchange, Financialization , Child labor , Child labor -- Congo (Democratic Republic), Cobalt, Commodification | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Economy and Society | ||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||
ISSN: | 0308-5147 | ||||||
Official Date: | 18 June 2021 | ||||||
Dates: |
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DOI: | 10.1080/03085147.2021.1899659 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Economy and Society on 18/06/2021, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03085147.2021.1899659 | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 16 February 2021 | ||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 18 December 2022 | ||||||
Is Part Of: | 1 | ||||||
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