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Sites created for and abandoned by hardrock mining operations in the Rocky Mountain West are among the most layered, complex, and noteworthy landscapes in America, expressive of the entangled relationships between the human processes of extraction and reclamation and nonhuman processes of geological and ecological change. Few types of landscape have involved such localized drastic change of the surface of the earth and such significant impacts on associated nonhuman and human systems. The spatial and temporal scales of mining and postmining operations and their impacts extend far beyond the immediate local context, recent history, and immediate future. The complexity of such landscapes transcends the physical and lies in the various values that drove the processes of extraction, as well as those at play in addressing postextraction conditions. They pose fundamental challenges to many disciplines and have prompted a rethinking of traditional concepts and practices of preservation and reclamation. This paper develops a framework that meaningfully responds to the complexities of postmining landscapes (PMLs). It is connected to a critical investigation of functional-performative and aesthetic-experiential considerations and an engagement of underlying meanings and values. It casts PMLs as dynamic and ever-changing sites to model and render legible new forms of human-environment relationships.
What is one to make of this place and of the memories that lie so visibly on its landscape?1
This article investigates postmining landscapes (PMLs) as challenging and complex places rich in environmental and cultural history and exposes the insufficiency of traditional and narrowly focused reclamation efforts. These efforts generally prioritize either the deployment of standardized, technically efficient engineering solutions for environmental cleanup and hazard mitigation or redevelopment for new economic activities. Rather than harnessing the potential of PMLs to render the past legible and model new forms of human-environment relationships, traditional reclamation practices tend to erase the spatial-material traces of activities central to the development of local culture and identities. While there are several prominent examples of the treatment of postindustrial landscapes that engage issues of historic preservation, environmental remediation, and economic and cultural redevelopment, there are next to no examples of PMLs that have been addressed in a similar multidisciplinary, multivalent, and context-responsive manner.2 The analysis and framework presented in this article forms a basis to approach PMLs and their problems...