Mimi Sheller is the Inaugural Dean of The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts. An established academic who studied at Harvard University and The New School of Social Research in New York, she has over the last two decades published numerous books and written many articles as an interdisciplinary scholar with interests in the history and life of the Caribbean, globalisation and social theory. Her 2014 publication Aluminum Dreams: the Making of Light Modernity is acknowledged as one of the most important critical overviews examining the cultural history of the aluminium industry. Aluminium, Sheller tells us, mobilised modern life in the twentieth century – it enabled air power, the space age and moon landings, and was important in technology, innovation, architecture, and design of the era. Yet, the consequences of aluminium’s growth see it underpin global military power, create struggle for sovereignty and resource control in the Caribbean and elsewhere; and raise environmental and health concerns in sites throughout Planet Earth.

Australia is the world’s largest bauxite producer, with many mining operations and large refineries on its western coast. Michele Horrigan worked there in 2023 to understand more, and travelled the countryside with Vince Puccio, who for almost thirty years has held industry to account for its transgressive actions towards the environment and his local community. Much of his work, as a member of the local action group Community Alliance for Positive Solutions, has involved collecting thousands of pages of reports, studies and government correspondence, and working with local communities affected by dust and air pollution caused by the industry. In particular this work has been about empowering neighbouring communities to challenge polluters, such as American-owned multinational Alcoa, whose Wagerup refinery near Puccio’s hometown of Yarloop have been at the centre of dust, air and groundwater pollution issues.