Lithium extractivism: perpetuating historical asymmetries in the ‘Green economy’

Abstract

The ‘Green economy’, a central plank of the sustainable development political and economic international agenda, relies on industrial extraction of water, minerals and other earths to produce ‘green energy’ to feed capitalist growth. The term Green extractivism describes a global problem that we examine through the case of lithium extraction in the territory of Atacameño-Likanantay (Indigenous) peoples in the Salar de Atacama, Chile. Green extractivism is a multiscalar logic and practice justified in international sustainable development policies, responding to the demands of capital, modifying international and national legal and political instruments, and permeating social, ecological and political realities in the territories of extraction. Green extractivism has many consistencies with the asymmetries of power and economic dependency that characterises the history of extractivism in Chile and Latin America. As such, Green extractivism provides a new logic to sustain consistencies in transnational capitalism. This paper traces national political and legal histories of lithium from the mid-twentieth century, demonstrating the long extractivist relationship between the state and the lithium companies that operate in the Salar de Atacama. We consider, in particular, the dynamics of Atacameño-Likanantay peoples’ participation in and refusals of industry and state processes, which trouble extractivist logics.

Keywords:

• Sustainable development
• Green extractivism
• Salar de Atacama (Chile)
• lithium
• Green economy

Acknowledgements

We thank Francisco Mondaca (Unidad de Medio Ambiente, Consejo de Pueblos Atacameños), who spent time talking with us about the analysis of the cases discussed here, and Kristen Lyons for her critical reading of an earlier draft.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors know of no conflicts of interest related to the research for this article.

Notes

1 ‘Green’ is capitalised throughout the paper (without quotation marks) to indicate our critical stance on claims that mining energy components have negligible environmental impact.

2 Due to its chemical composition, lithium is a metal that can be used for nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons.

3 The historical associations between US copper companies and lithium exploration (and later mining) are not lost on the authors, but there is no space to explore this here.

4 Gudynas (2018) exempts Chile from the ‘neoextractivist’ model. However, given our outline of policy change, we argue that the characterisations of nation-states as of one kind or another is problematically rigid.

5 The CORFO contracts refer to ‘pertenencias mineras’, literally ‘mining properties’. However, the mining code defines areas of exploitation as concessions, and the Political Constitution also only refers to concessions and not to properties. The difference is important in consideration of the tenuous hold the state retains over mining territories.

6 According to section 94 of the Regulations for the SEIA (Decree 40, 2013), projects that cause environmental burdens are those projects or activities that generate social benefits and that cause negative environmental effects in nearby locations during their construction or operation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara Mejia-Muñoz

Sara Mejia-Muñoz is a human rights lawyer and social scientist studying for her PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Queensland. Her research looks at the relationship between Latin American Indigenous Peoples and the activities associated with implementing sustainable development policies to mitigate climate change in Indigenous territories. She has worked as an international advocate and consultant in Latin America and as a researcher in Australia on Indigenous Peoples’ rights, ecological justice and extractivism for the last seven years.

Sally Babidge

Sally Babidge is Associate Professor (Anthropology) in the School of Social Science, the University of Queensland, Australia. She has published ethnographic research on the water of the Salar de Atacama, Likanantay-Atacameño peoples’ relations with it and with their co-resident extractivists, the transnational giants of copper and lithium mining industries. Her anthropological research on the state and Aboriginal kinship and territoriality in Australia has been published as Aboriginal Family and the State: The Conditions of History (2010, Ashgate).