A manifesto
for a diplomacy
of materials
The objects of our everyday lives are never produced in a single place. They are made of metals, minerals, plant fibres, chemical molecules and plastics extracted, transformed and transported across the world. Behind every phone, car, garment or machine lies a vast geography of mines, factories, laboratories, ports, territories and bodies.
Deep Materiology - deepmateriology.com - seeks to make this geography visible. It documents the technical, geopolitical, social, cultural and environmental realities that make our objects possible. Even a product declared "Made in France” is therefore, at a deeper level, made in biosphere: its existence mobilises soils, waters and atmospheres, crosses territories, and affects both human bodies and those of other living beings.
We propose the creation of a label that would not merely identify the origin of materials or certify better practices. Its purpose would also be to activate the relationships already contained within objects: to create forms of mediation between all those whose existence is connected, often without their knowing it, through the same material.
The quartz in a microprocessor, for example, connects the geologists and workers who extract it in North Carolina (USA); Cherokee communities for whom it holds cosmological significance; local residents whose livelihoods depend on the mine; organisations monitoring its effects on water, landscapes and biodiversity; the chemists who purify it in Germany; the producers of energy and industrial reagents; Japanese manufacturers of silicon ingots and wafers; Taiwanese engineers who etch the chips; European, American and Asian manufacturers of lithography machines, furnaces, vacuum pumps and robots; the sailors, dockworkers and logistics workers who enable their circulation; the biologists who care for species living near industrial sites; as well as repairers, recyclers, artists, spiritual practitioners and users of electronic objects.
These relationships already exist, but they remain fragmented, invisible or inactive. The Made in Biosphere label would aim to make them perceptible and to create spaces for dialogue between industry, public authorities, workers, researchers, local communities, Indigenous peoples, civil society organisations, artists and citizens.
It would enable decision-makers to understand that all national production rests upon an international assemblage of materials, knowledge, territories and dependencies. Our objects therefore possess a latent diplomatic power: they can become vehicles for new forms of cooperation between the places and beings they bring into relation.
Making these connections visible is a political act. The aim is not only to expose the most violent realities of production, but also to recognise the forms of knowledge, solidarity and care that emerge within it. Understanding what our objects are made of is the beginning of transforming the ways in which we design, produce, use and share them.
