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The smartphone is often understood as a compact, self-contained object, but its materials are sourced from geographically dispersed and politically unequal regions. Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and rare earth processing in China reveal that the phone depends on global supply chains structured by extraction, labor exploitation, and environmental degradation. These processes are not incidental to the phone’s production; they are foundational to it.
Situating these sites on a map makes visible what is typically obscured by a smooth interface. The phone does not originate in a single place, but is assembled through a network of locations where ecological damage and human labor are unevenly distributed. In this sense, the smartphone is embedded within the broader dynamics of the Anthropocene, where environmental transformation is tied to global systems of production and inequality.
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- Maps Beatrice Goyer
