Beautiful Ecology: Resource Extraction, Surreality of Landscape and Aesthetics of Ruin in Liberia
Danielle Taana Smith | Syracuse University
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.71106/WQJQ6349
Publication: Volume 7
Abstract | This essay attempts to reflect on a particular kind of violence that is slow, beautiful, and very difficult to perceive, to express, and to resist. It draws on fieldwork conducted in Monrovia, Liberia, and at resource extraction sites across Liberia to examine an under-theorized dimension of environmental destruction, which is its beauty. The iron ore mines of Bomi Hills have left behind Blue Lake, a body of water with surreal clarity that became a popular tourist destination. In Nimba, the iron ore company town of Yekepa and the scarred Nimba Mountain range above it are promoted in international travel guides as adventure tourism destinations, even as mining of the range expands and intensifies. In Nimba, beauty is not merely a by-product of resource extraction, but an intentionally curated aesthetic by the extracting company. The landscapes that frame these mining sites are photogenically lush with vegetation and vivid with color. This beauty is not incidental; rather it is part of how extractive violence operates to conceal environmental devastation beneath surfaces that the eye perceives as beautiful, making destruction difficult to name. Drawing on Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence, Frantz Fanon’s analysis of colonial spaces, and Walter Rodney’s theorization of the underdevelopment of Africa, this essay argues that the aesthetic surreality of Liberia’s extraction landscapes constitutes a form of violence and of visual politics that transform ecological wounds into natural wonders.
Keywords | Liberia, Resource Extraction, Environmental Destruction, Slow Violence, Underdevelopment, Aesthetics of Ruin
Danielle Taana Smith (dsmith33@syr.edu; ORCiD ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4275-9172) is a Professor in the Department of African American Studies and Professor of Sociology (courtesy) in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, USA. Her research engages in global policy issues with an overarching goal of improving the social and economic environment for all, especially those at the margins of our society.
MLA Citation for this Article:
Smith, Danielle Taana. “Beautiful Ecology: Resource Extraction, Surreality of Landscape and Aesthetics of Ruin in Liberia.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 7, 23 Oct. 2026, pp. 5.1–5.10, https://doi.org/10.71106/WQJQ6349.