The Social Life of Phosphate on the Two Shores of the Mediterranean: Labour, Ecology, and Migrations

This presentation focuses on the extraction, travel, and processing of phosphate, tracing the history of the commodity’s movements from Khouribga (Morocco) to Porto Marghera (Italy). For decades, these two sites have been silently connected in what historian Simon Jackson calls the Phosphate Archipelago: a network of extractive and industrial spaces on the two shores of the Mediterranean, spaces once managed by the French empire. Over time, deep changes have transformed the global political economy of phosphate. Today, nonetheless, phosphate remains a key ingredient in the global food regime, and the disruption of the phosphorus cycle is a prominent ecological threat. Phosphate thus invisibly links not only mining, industry and agriculture, but also interconnected conflicts around labour, ecology and international relations.