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- Title
The Birth of the Mineral Species 'Aguilarite' and What Came Next: A Twice-Told Tale.
- Authors
Ferry, Elizabeth Emma
- Abstract
This article explores the emergence of the mineral species aguilarite, discovered by Ponciano Aguilar in Guanajuato, Mexico, in the early 1890s. In itself, aguilarite is not particularly significant-it is a dark, somewhat dull mineral that has no economic use and only moderate interest for collectors or mineralogists. However, the circumstances of its discovery, naming, and subsequent life lend themselves to two modes of analysis and types of insight-one coming out of the work of Bruno Latour and others in the field, known as 'Actor Network Theory' (ANT), and the other influenced by political economy in anthropology, with particular emphasis on 'commodity-chain studies.' This work examines aguilarite's birth to look at some of the ways these two approaches treat the relationship between things and people, and the consequences of those treatments. What do these two ways of telling aguilarite's story reveal and conceal? How might they work together?
- Subjects
GUANAJUATO (Mexico); MINES &; mineral resources; SULFOSALTS; MINERALOGISTS; ANTHROPOLOGY; ECONOMICS
- Publication
Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology, 2013, Vol 18, Issue 3, p376
- ISSN
1935-4932
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/jlca.12037