Assembling green extractivism: The legitimization of lithium mining in the context of the global energy transition
The global green energy transition towards a low-carbon economy via decarbonization is increasing the demand for and exploitation of ‘critical’ resources, including lithium. The growing demand for lithium, which, as a raw material, is primarily found in countries of the global South, has sparked a new debate on the global interdependencies, unequal ecological exchange and unevenness of the energy transition between the global North and South. In this context, concepts such as green extractivism, green colonialism and green sacrifice zones have emerged. Felix Dorn builds on this strand of literature, assuming that decarbonization – as the overarching goal of the energy transition – influences the decisions taken over lithium mining and the narratives used to legitimize it in lithium-rich regions. Focusing on the case of Jujuy, Argentina, he analyses how green discursive strategies contribute to the symbolic-material legitimation of lithium mining. Specifically, Dorn identifies a green development and industrialization and a climate protection narrative. Both narratives are increasingly linked to global discourses of green energy transition and are part of an emerging green developmentalist dispositive that manifests in new institutions, laws and administrative measures to enforce lithium mining.
About the Speaker Felix Dorn works as university assistant (post-doc) at the Department of Development Studies, University of Vienna. In February 2021 he finished his PhD at Innsbruck University with a focus on political ecology and the global lithium production network. His current research focuses on the political ecology of decarbonization and the accompanying valorization of climate change commodities such as lithium, and green hydrogen in Latin America and Europe.
