Extractivism

Extractivism is more than just the removal of natural resources from the earth for capital gain, and is tied with exploitative geopolitical, economic and social processes related to capitalism and colonialism. A recent review of the term defined the concept as "a complex ensemble of self-reinforcing practices, mentalities, and power differentials underwriting and rationalizing socio-ecologically destructive modes of organizing life through subjugation, violence, depletion, and non-reciprocity" (Chagnon et al. 2022).

Within the sciences, extractivism manifests through exploitative research and employment practices and cultural beliefs and practices informed by settler colonialism and colonial logic processes and ideologies which assert white European dominance. The history of many academic disciplines is intertwined with imperialistic extractivism of natural resources, which came about through the removal, dispossession, exclusion, oppression, and erasure of Indigenous people and knowledge. Acknowledging these histories is critical for understanding persistent inequities in research today.

• Our Past Creates Our Present: A Brief Overview of Racism and Colonialism in Western Paleontology. By Pedro Monarrez and colleagues.

Extractivist data

Extractivist practices have been very common in the health sciences. For example, major medical advances over more than a half century, from the first polio vaccine to research on cancer and AIDS, including three Nobel Prizes, have been developed from a line of HeLa cells, so called because they originated from Henrietta Lacks, a tobacco farmer with cervical cancer receiving treatment at one of the few public hospital wards that served Black patients. These cells were obtained without her consent or knowledge and until recently, her family did not receive any recognition or compensation.

• Henrietta Lacks: science must right a historical wrong. Nature Editorial Board.

Helicopter or colonial research

Helicopter research describes the still common practice when scientists from wealthier nations travel to less affluent countries and extract samples and data for their own gain, conducting all analyses out of the original country or region where the samples were collected, and publishing with little to no involvement of local researchers. This is called colonial research when there is a current or prior colonial relationship between the two countries. Helicopter research can occur within a country, when researchers from well-funded institutions or big cities conduct research in areas that are less resourced.

• Global soil science research collaboration in the 21st century: Time to end helicopter research by Budisman Minasny et al.
• Ending "domestic helicopter research" by W. Marcus Lambert et al. 

One example of helicopter research is the extraction of amber fossils from Myanmar. In the case described in the study below, a major amber mining industry has been associated with supporting armed conflict in an area with reported international human rights violations. The ethical implications of doing research with fossils from this area are overlooked in most publications. The authors found that only five out of 872 publications on Myanmar amber analyzed included co-authors based in Myanmar.

• Ethics, law, and politics in palaeontological research: The case of Myanmar amber by Emma Dunne, Nussaïbah B. Raja, Paul P. Stewens, Zin-Maung-Maung-Thein and Khin Zaw 

Extractivist labor

Another example of racialized and gendered extractivism is the disproportionate representation of women of Color in adjunct and non-tenure track positions. Those who are in tenure-track positions see their progress toward tenure and promotion jeopardized by disproportionate service burdens.

• More Faculty Diversity, Not on Tenure Track by Colleen Flaherty. 
• The Burden of Invisible Work in Academia: Social Inequalities and Time use in Five University Departments by Social Sciences Feminist Network Research Interest Group.

Another form of extractivism is the precarity of graduate student funding despite PhD and Masters students being a primary source of labor for research and instruction at research-intensive universities. This form of extractivism also is racialized, with Black and Hispanic PhD recipients in 2021 more likely to graduate with debt than their peers.

• Exploring the Educational Experiences of Black and Hispanic PhDs in STEM by Erin Dunlop Velez and Ruth Heuer for the Alfred Sloan Foundation.
• 'Not even enough money for food": graduate students face cash crunch by Chris Woolston. 
• Canadian science graduate stipends lie below the poverty line by Andrew Heffrey Fraass et al. 
• The scandal of researchers paid less than a living wage by Nature Editorial Board.