Oro blanco: assembling extractivism in the lithium triangle

ABSTRACT

As the drive for global electrification proceeds, new pressures are placed on agrarian environments in areas abundant in key minerals for electric batteries. The so-called lithium triangle between Chile, Argentina and Bolivia is one of those places. We develop an account of the ‘assemblages of extractivism’ at work in this zone that operate at a material, institutional and discursive level. Drawing on fieldwork from the region and conceptualized using different strands of political ecology and political economy, we explore how the construction of a commodity, the materiality of lithium and the role of the state intersect with local understandings and engagements with this latest form of ‘renewable extractivism’.

KEYWORDS:

• Lithium
• extractivism
• political economy
• political ecology
• decolonization
• transitions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 As defined by Romero and Opazo, ayllus are the ancestral territories of high Andean communities:

The indigenous ayllu term corresponds to the representation of a place and is used by Andean societies to refer to a landscape synthesis made up of components and interactions of natural and social, physical and metaphysical, material and symbolic origin, human living beings and non-living beings. (2019, 43)

2 Conflictos Mineros en Chile. Available at: https://mapa.conflictosmineros.net/ocmal_db-v2/conflicto/lista/02032300.

3 See https://investors.albemarle.com/node/23741/html#exhibit9631231202110-k.htm.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniela Soto Hernandez

Daniela Soto Hernandez is a social anthropologist, studying for her PhD in international development at the University of Sussex. Her research looks at the sociocultural and territorial impacts of lithium extraction in the Antofagasta region, Chile, in the context of energy transition. She is an adjunct professor in the School of Anthropology at the Universidad Católica de Chile and has worked as a researcher and consultant in Chile on various topics for the last 10 years.

Peter Newell

Peter Newell is a professor of international relations at the University of Sussex. He has worked on the politics of climate change and broader issues of sustainability for over 25 years. His research focuses on the global political economy of climate change and energy, including work on energy transitions and carbon markets. He has worked at the universities of Sussex, Oxford, Warwick and East Anglia and FLACSO Argentina. He is co-founder and research director of the Rapid Transition Alliance and has also worked for NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and Climate Network Europe, is a member of the board of directors of Greenpeace UK and sits on the advisory board of the green think tank Greenhouse. He is author and co-author of numerous books on environmental politics including Climate for Change; The Effectiveness of EU Environmental Policy; Governing Climate Change; Climate Capitalism; Globalization and the Environment; Transnational Climate Change Governance; Global Green Politics; and Power Shift: The Global Political Economy of Energy Transitions.