The Psychogeophysics of Bangka Island: On Tin, Mining, and Materiality

In 2018, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), commissioned by the mining corporation Rio Tinto, released the list of metals they expected to be most impacted, in terms of increased demand, by upcoming technologies. Tin ranked highest as the most impacted. Almost one third of global tin supply is extracted from two islands in the western archipelago of Indonesia, Bangka and Belitung. In this paper, I focus on fieldwork undertaken in Bangka Island and re-examine the materiality of tin and its complex entanglement with humans through psychogeophysics. This involves bringing a creative approach to the practice of the geophysical survey as a method and solo dérive. The practice of psychogeophysics seeks to provide an analysis of an island that has been actively mined and geo-transformed for millennia. I begin by exploring the history of tin on Bangka island, then focus on the construction of tin’s value and the dynamic relationship between humans, nature, and labour as conceived among different groups of people and issues; an entanglement between small-scale unconventional miners, mining company PT. Timah, the indigenous Orang Lom, and scientists speculating on phytomining in Bangka. The psychogeophysical approach implies a research practice of experiencing and encountering, which seeks to apply a critical epistemological instrument by which to gain knowledge regarding the way in which tin is enmeshed in the geophysical, political, cultural, and technological realm.