Cristóbal Bonelli and Marina Weinberg, both researchers from the Worlds of Lithium (WOL) project, will participate in the seminar "Territorialidades Divergentes en América del Sur", organized by Mario Blaser and Cristina Rojas in Asunción, Paraguay, from April 9 to April 11, 2025. This gathering will bring together scholars working across Latin America to explore how different ways of inhabiting and shaping territories challenge dominant frameworks of modernization and development.

Bonelli will present his work "Gardens at the Edge of the Falling Sky", where he reflects on how energy transitions reshape landscapes and ways of living. Focusing on lithium mining in northern Chile, his talk will explore how extraction projects not only transform ecosystems but also affect the ways in which local communities perceive and engage with their surroundings. Inspired by the ideas of Davi Kopenawa and Bernard Stiegler, Bonelli invites us to think beyond simple narratives of sustainability and consider what remains, resists, and reconfigures in these shifting terrains.

Weinberg, in turn, will present "Between the Pluriverse and the Multiverse: Lithium Off-sites, Capitalist Science Fiction, and World-Making". Her talk explores how lithium infrastructures generate unexpected spatial and temporal displacements—what she calls “off-sites”—that challenge the dominant techno-scientific imagination of the energy transition. Drawing on speculative thought and grounded fieldwork, Weinberg examines how alternative world-making practices emerge in the cracks of extractive capitalism.

The seminar will also feature contributions from scholars including Pilar Riaño, Daniel Ruiz Serna, Salvador Schavelzon, Lorna Quiroga, José Candido Ferreira, Cristina Rojas, and Toribia Lero Quispe, along with local participants and community organizations. Through open discussions and collaborative reflections, the event aims to generate new insights into the diverse ways territories are shaped, contested, and lived.

Stay tuned for updates on this exciting gathering in Paraguay!

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We are pleased to announce that Cristóbal Bonelli, Principal Investigator of the Worlds of Lithium (WoL) project, has been invited to inaugurate the Energy Dialogues series, organized by the ENERGEO Project.

This first session will explore the often-overlooked social and environmental disruptions linked to lithium’s extraction and circulation in the context of the Green Transition. While the push for emission-free electromobility is widely promoted as a sustainable alternative, the complexities surrounding lithium as a critical resource remain largely invisible. Bonelli’s research examines how these transformations reshape landscapes, communities, and knowledge systems across Chile, China, and Norway.

Based on a multi-sited ethnographic approach, the Worlds of Lithium project reveals how lithium interconnects diverse actors, expertise, and infrastructures along its global supply chain. This dialogue will offer a space to critically engage with the contradictions and challenges of energy transitions and their implications for contemporary anthropology.

📅 Date: Friday, April 4, 2025

⏰ Time: 12:00 (Lisbon)

📍 Online Session

🔗 Join via Zoom: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/9994471565

Suggested Readings

To enrich the discussion, we encourage participants to review the following readings:

Bonelli, C. R., & Gamba, M. (2024). Underground Roots for Ancestral Futures: Exploring Lithium Through an Experimental Alliance between Chemistry and Anthropology. Science, Technology, & Human Values.

Bonelli, C., Galaz-Mandakovic, D., Weinberg, M., Figueroa, V., & Hecht, G. (2024). Cenizas del Antropoceno: Omisiones de carbón y estratigrafía tóxica en Tocopilla (Chile). Revista Colombiana de Antropología.

Bonelli, C., & Dorador, C. (2021). Endangered Salares: Micro-disasters in Northern Chile. Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society.

Join us for this important discussion on lithium, sustainability, and the challenges of energy transitions!

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From March 21 to 27, 2025, the workshop Geopolitics of Lithium Off-Sites: Infrastructures, Territories, and Geologies took place across San Pedro de Atacama, Mejillones, and Antofagasta. The event was organized by LIONESS, a project funded by Chile’s National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) through its Anillos program, and co-directed by Marina Weinberg and Valentina Figueroa.

LIONESS builds on and expands the research developed through the Worlds of Lithium project, creating new spaces for collaborative inquiry into the territorial, ecological, and geopolitical dimensions of mining infrastructures in northern Chile. Marina Weinberg, a key researcher in Worlds of Lithium, now co-leads LIONESS, while Cristóbal Bonelli participates as an invited international expert.

Bringing together anthropologists, historians, artists, and scientists such as Jacinta Arthur, Cristóbal Bonelli, Valentina Figueroa, Bruno Fornillo, Hans Gundermann, Gabrielle Hecht, Enzo Isola, Potšišo Phasha, Cecilia Roa, and Marina Weinberg, the workshop explored how mining infrastructures unsettle established geographies and open up speculative and situated approaches to planetary transformation.

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On March 27, 2025, the Spanish edition of Gabrielle Hecht’s Gobernanza Residual (Residual Governance) has been launched at the Ruinas de Huanchaca in Antofagasta, Chile. This long-awaited translation, led by Marina Weinberg through qillqa ediciones of the Universidad Católica del Norte—brings Hecht’s influential work on environmental governance, technology, and power to Spanish-speaking audiences.

Gabrielle Hecht presented her book, accompanied by comments from Cristóbal Bonelli and the book’s photographer, Potšišo Phasha. The conversation focused on the themes of the book, which critically examine how residual materials, infrastructures, and waste governance shape global politics and inequalities. It has also explored how this work can serve as a generative conceptual tool in mining territories in northern Chile.

While the book launch stands as a key event, it is also framed within a week of activities organized by the "Geopolitics of Lithium Off-Sites: Infrastructures, Territories, and Ecologies – LIONESS" project, funded by ANID-Chile and co-directed by Marina Weinberg and Valentina Figueroa.

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Cristóbal Bonelli, Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project Worlds of Lithium, was invited by the Institute for Social Sciences Research (ICSO) at Universidad Diego Portales (UDP) to speak at the "Cultural and Climate Crisis" lecture series held in Santiago, Chile. Bonelli delivered a talk titled "Critical Materialities: Conceptual Creativity in Times of Crisis."

In his presentation, Bonelli explored the transformative power of ethnographic concepts as essential tools for addressing contemporary crises through a situated and grounded approach. He highlighted his work in northern Chile with the concept of microdisasters, which brings attention to the destruction of microbial ecologies in endangered salt flats impacted by extractivist activities. Additionally, he discussed his research in southern Chile centered on Mollvbun, a Mapudungun term for "blood," which he interprets as a "relational capacity" rather than merely a biological substance.

Bonelli described these concepts as "concrete abstractions" that retain the strength of the places where they are conceived, producing real-world impacts ranging from environmental legal disputes to cultural and political debates. Notably, the concept of microdisasters has recently been used in the legal defense of the Salar de Surire in Chile.

The lecture concluded with an invitation to embrace conceptual creativity as a critical tool for reimagining agency and fostering transformative alliances amidst global crises. The "Cultural and Climate Crisis" lecture series, organized by ICSO-UDP, aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue on the cultural dimensions of the climate crisis. For more details about the event, visit this link. ...

A strong representation of the Worlds of Lithium team was present at the 18th Biennial Conference of EASA. Postdoctoral researcher Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz joined panel P090 titled 'Future Matters: Urban Transformations between Utopia and Dystopia'. His presentation 'Smart Futures: Green Urban Mobility and Property Regimes in a Socialist Dystopia' explored how the the expansion of smart technologies relates to social disempowerment and urban transformation in the New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) market in China, showing how the promise of smart futures fosters the technological control over society by NEV producers and city authorities. In panel P217 'Life after Oil? Undoing the Contradictions of the Energy Transition' (hosted by the Environmental Anthropology Network), our PhD candidate Michelle Geraerts delived her presentation '"New Oil" adn Circular Tensions: Following the Afterlife of Electric Car Batteries in Norway's Green Mobility Shift'. Michelle presented part of his work on an industrial area that is known for its 'clean' processes and its proximity to a nature reserve, showing how situating the circular economy makes us think about messy environments and relations. Finally, affiliated member and PhD candidate Mariana Riquito participated in Panel P166 'Extractive Politics and Ecofeminism' with her presentation 'Ecofeminist Resistance in Barroso: Embodying Communitarian, Ancestral, and Place-based Practices against a Prospective Lithium Mine'. In it, Mariana examined local resistance ot lithium mining, revealing how communitarian practices challenge extractivist norms. She emphasised women's pivotal role in resisting and nurturing intimate connections between people and their more-than-human worlds....

In a landmark event, Cristobal Bonelli and Marina Weinberg, alongside Gabrielle Hecht, Damir Galaz Mandakovic, and Valentina Figueroa, delivered the Presidential Address at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). The conference, themed "Repair in the History of Technology," provided a fitting platform for the collective talk.

Their address, based on collaborative work in Northern Chile, introduced the concept of “Carbon Omissions,” a novel term coined by the team to highlight overlooked aspects of carbon emissions and their impacts. The presentation underscored the importance of acknowledging these omissions in historical and contemporary discussions about technology and environmental sustainability.

The SHOT Annual Meeting continues to be a critical gathering for thought leaders and innovators in the history of technology, and this year's Presidential Address by Bonelli, Weinberg, and their colleagues was a significant contribution to the ongoing discourse.

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From June 12-14, 2024, Colombia was the vibrant venue for the LASA 2024 Congress, themed "Reaction and Resistance: Imagining Possible Futures in the Americas." The event brought together scholars and activists from across the continent to discuss critical issues and potential futures for the region.

One of the highlights was the panel "Luchas Territoriales en América Latina desde una Perspectiva Relacional," where Cristobal Bonelli co-discussed alongside Marisol de la Cadena. Their insights sparked engaging conversations on territorial struggles in Latin America from a relational perspective.

Cristobal Bonelli also presented his work, “The Zero ‘Omissions’ Targets: Re-energizing Transitions Beyond Electro-Mobility and Lithium-Ion Batteries,” as part of the panel "Energizando transiciones y debates desde el sur," organized by Marina Weinberg and María Cecilia Roa.

The congress fostered a space for dynamic discussions, innovative ideas, and collaborative efforts, setting a significant tone for future engagements and actions in the Americas.

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In September, Cristobal Bonelli participated in a series of strategic meetings in Buenos Aires, Argentina, aimed at strengthening long-term collaborations for the Worlds of Lithium (WOL) project in Latin America. These efforts are in line with the goal of establishing sustainable research networks that will continue beyond the ERC-funded phase of WOL.

A key meeting was jointly organized by three projects: Worlds of Lithium, Marina Weinberg’s newly awarded research project, and Bruno Fornillo’s Geopolitics and Commons Studies Group. This strategic session involved Bonelli, Weinberg (who leads WOL in Chile), and Fornillo, and focused on establishing collaborative research channels that will extend over the next three years. Weinberg’s project, funded by Chile's National Agency for Research and Development (ANID) through the "2024 Anillos Research Competition in Specific Thematic Areas," builds on her work for WOL and is titled The Geopolitics of Lithium Off-sites: Infrastructures, Territories, and Ecologies. It explores the social and material transformations linked to lithium in areas distant from extraction sites, with a multidisciplinary team.

The collaborative meeting set the stage for these projects to work together in advancing research on lithium geopolitics and territorial transformations, with Bonelli participating as an external expert. This partnership represents a significant step towards extending the impact of Worlds of Lithium in Latin America beyond the ERC funding period.

In addition to this, Bonelli took part in an academic workshop organized by the Program of Studies on Global China at the IDAES School and the Chinese Global Orders Program of The British Academy. Over two days, scholars and professionals from various international institutions met at UNSAM University to discuss China’s evolving role in the global order, particularly its relationships with Latin America. Bonelli’s participation in these discussions contributes to the broader geopolitical focus of the Worlds of Lithium project, particularly regarding energy transitions and resource governance in China, and its various connections with Latin America.

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Cristobal Bonelli and Marina Weinberg disseminated their work at the conference “Responsible Lithium Production for Energy Transition and Electric Mobility,” held in Jujuy, Argentina, from July 1st to July 5th, 2024.

Amidst the delicate political climate in Argentina regarding new reforms facilitating lithium extraction, and in an environment strongly influenced by the presence of chemical professionals, Cristobal and Marina presented their research on “reducing omissions” and the importance of “lithium off-sites,” respectively.

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Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz, postdoctoral researcher with Worlds of Lithium, delivered his talk 'Driving Change: Ecological Civilisation and the Rise of the Electromobility Industry' for students and faculty of the Sociology department, Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Ampuero-Ruiz was invited by the Chairperson of the Sociology department, Mr. John Paolo C. Dalupang, and Professor of Economic Sociology Dr Floramante SJ Ponce to present his research on China's role in the electromobility industry. After his presentation, Ampuero-Ruiz engaged in a very vibrant discussion with PUP Sociology students....

The team of the ERC Worlds of Lithium, in collaboration with ICLAC, has organised a webinar series about China's pivotal role in energy transitions, bringing together leading scholars and emerging researchers from different disciplines to think collectively in a webinar series. We aim at illuminating the complexities shaping the role of China in the emerging worlds of electromobility, paying close attention to the Chinese Ecological Civilisation project, the global circulation of eletromobility technologies, and the diverse drivers propelling electromobility in Chinese worlds.

In the first event, Annah Lake Zhu (Wageningen University), Steve Harrell (University of Washington), and HUANG Ping (CUHK Shenzhen) we explored China's Ecological Civilisation. Our invited speakers engaged with the following questions:

What precisely constitutes Ecological Civilisation (生态文明)?
Which are the most suitable conceptual and technological tools to think and grasp its nuances?

This event took place on Friday, 10 May 2024 (9:00 CL / 15:00 NL / 21:00 CN). Rewatch it here: [https://youtu.be/SUEnaWZixLM]

In the second event, GONG Huiwen (Universitetet i Stavanger), Juliana González Jauregui (ICLAC, CONICET & FLACSO), and Ágnes Szunomár (Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem) focused on the role of China in the global circulation of electromobility technologies. We were interested in opening a conversation around the following questions:

How and which actors produce the global circulation of lithium-ion batteries for electromobility? What is value and what is chain in the lithium-ion battery chain?

This event took place on Friday, 24 May 2024 (9:00 CL / 15:00 NL / 21:00 CN). Rewatch it here: [https://youtu.be/X3bMj9648XE]

Finally, in the third event David Tyfield (Lancaster University), Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz (Universiteit van Amsterdam), and Haley KWAN Hiu-Lap (Hong Kong University) will tackle the drivers of electromobility in Chinese worlds. In this sessions we seek to explore the following questions:

What is work, time and space in the worlds of electromobility?
How technical objects and infrastructures constitute time, and what spatial considerations come into play within and through the diverse Chinese worlds of electromobility?

This event will take place on Friday, 7 June 2024 (9:00 CL / 15:00 NL / 21:00 CN). Register here.

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Organised by UCL Anthropocene in London UK, this hybrid event presented “Carbon Omissions: Toward a Toxic Stratigraphy of Tocopilla, Northern Chile”. The group of international co-authors and presenters included team member Cristobal Bonelli, Damir Galaz-Mandakovic, Valentina Figueroa, team member Marina Weinberg and Gabrielle Hecht.

UCL Anthropocene works as a virtual school by assembling projects, people, courses, and events from across the social sciences, arts, humanities, life, environmental, and health sciences to articulate and address the problems that the Anthropocene poses for our collective future.

The presentation complicated the hegemonic and globalizing project of corporate carbon neutrality by visualizing Tocopilla’s ashtray (sp, el cenicero de Tocopilla), a sedimented volume of fly ash resulting from the combustion of coal and petroleum coke during the last four decades. Through a transdisciplinary exercise mobilizing anthropological, historical and archaeological methods, the presentation aimed to visualize the Tocopilla ashtray through a toxic stratigraphy which worked as a) an index of carbon omissions, namely, those destructive material transformations strongly omitted by the net zero emissions project of corporate carbon neutrality, as well as b) the product of residual governance, a deadly form of rule in which the management of waste and discards relies on tactics such as simplification, ignorance, and delay, treating people as waste and places as wasteland.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene/events/2024/mar/carbon-omissions-toward-toxic-stratigraphy-tocopilla-northern-chile

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Cristobal Bonelli presented the Keynote “ŒMISSIONS Unveiled: Rethinking Emissions Reduction Beyond the Lithium-Ion Battery Black Box”. The event was organised by the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains Université libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium.

In his Keynote, Cristobal Bonelli introduced the concept of intercalation, inspired by battery chemistry, as an ethnographic concept which partially connects Chile, China, and Norway, he argued that emission reduction projects must be scrutinised for the omissions they generate. He offered the term ŒMISSIONS to encapsulate this simultaneous process and interconnectedness, with the ligature "Œ" intricately linking omissions and emissions; ŒMISSIONS interweaves the emissions we aim to reduce with the hidden omissions that accompany technological progress.

https://lamc.phisoc.ulb.be/actualites/evenements/cycle-de-conferences-en-anthropologie-3?RH=21360453660807977&LANGUE=0

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The team of the ERC Worlds of Lithium has organised a 2-day workshop with Dr Huiwen Gong (Stavanger) to enhance knowledge exchange about China. The first day was dedicated to engagements between research programmes and discussions about future projects. On the second day, our team organised a workshop to discuss papers-in-the-making about the role of China and energy transition materials. The emphasis of the activity was on bringing together different disciplines and scholars to think collectively and improve our publications before submission.

On the occasion, we counted with three papers addressing China in relation to energy transition materials. These manuscripts were provided by Jewellord Nem Singh, Assistant Professor of International Development at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague and Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded programme GRIP-ARM; Huiwen Gong, Associate Professor for Regional Studies and Innovation at the University of Stavanger, and Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz, Postdoctoral researcher with the ERC-funded programme Worlds of Lithium at the University of Amsterdam.

In this closed workshop, guests were invited based on their expertise and potential interest. Each paper was discussed by an invited scholar before the floor was opened for more collective reflections. Roger Creemers, Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (LIAS); Julia Bader, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, and Willy Sier, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Utrecht University each were assigned a paper to discuss. Their commentaries were not only highly relevant and helpful for the authors, but also allowed for new reflections and ideas emerging from the materials at hand.

The event was successful in its endeavour to build bridges and think collectively. We hope to see the final form of these articles out soon!

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Cristobal Bonelli presented some preliminary findings of Worlds of Lithium research in Chile and China at the The Sociology of Development and Change (SDC) seminar at Wageningen University.

In this presentation, he introduced the concept of ŒMISSIONS as a heuristic to examine the often-overlooked Omissions stemming from Emissions reduction initiatives and technologies. Drawing on ethnographic research carried out in Chile and China, he critically analyzed the eco-modern pursuit of decarbonization, particularly within the context of electric transportation and its optimistic dependence on lithium-ion batteries. He explored how the emphasis on specialized chemical abstractions and the portrayal of batteries as pivotal tools for decarbonization omits significant transformations in regions governed by energo-power dynamics and productive notions of work and labour.

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Team members Pablo Ampuero Ruiz and Cristobal Bonelli disseminated preliminary findings concerning research on China and lithium ion batteries at NÚCLEO MILENIO ICLAC.

A Keynote was presented by Pablo Ampuero: “Electromobilidad, Trabajo, y Energía: Intercalando iones y trabajadores en la megalópolis de Shenzhen”.

The Millennium Core on China's Impacts in Latin America (ICLAC) or Millenium Nucleus on the Impacts of China in Latin America and the Caribbean is an interdisciplinary proposal that seeks to address one of the greatest foreign policy and sustainable development challenges facing developing countries: China's rise as its main economic partner and the concomitant increase in its political influence on the political agendas of these countries. China's impact on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is paradigmatic, as it is a continent where 67% of its population lives in a country where China is the main economic partner.

The general objective of this Nucleus is to deepen the understanding of the political consequences of China's capital boom in Latin America over the past twenty years, both in its socio-economic and cultural dimension.

https://iclac.cl/

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Cristobal Bonelli presented the Keynote “Repensar la electromovilidad: Baterías, descarbonización y reducción de omisiones en los mundos de litio” at Coloquios de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad. (Rethinking electromobility: Batteries, decarbonisation and reduction of omissions in Lithium worlds.) The event was organized by the Centro de Estudios en Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad (CECTS), at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile.

The colloquiums are an initiative of the Center for the Studies in Science, Technology and Society (CECTS) of Alberto Hurtado University, which aim to disseminate research that addresses the complex interactions between science, technology and society.

https://cects.uahurtado.cl/2023/08/coloquios-cts-2023/

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Worlds of Lithium's team member Marina Weinberg began the dissemination of the project's findings while speaking at the "The paths of energy transition: The circulation of lithium, copper and other strategic metals in the southern Andes" workshop in Tocopilla, Chile.

The workshop brought together scholars to study, not the localized modes of mining extraction, but how these minerals circulate and are transported through the Andean space and towards global points of consumption. The seminar, of an exploratory nature, took as a privileged observation point different ports on the desert coast of the South Pacific: Iquique, Patillos, Patache, Tocopilla, Michilla, Mejillones. These ports organize a varied and consistent typology, from which to observe the ongoing reconfiguration of the region as a whole.

Los caminos de la transición energética

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During 26 and 27 October, Dr Ampuero-Ruiz, postdoctoral researcher with WOL, took part in the final workshop of the Governing Batteries project at the Graduate Institute in Geneva Switzerland. Drawing from his recent fieldwork in Shenzhen, he presented part of his research on the mobile and fixed aspects that enable electromobility in China. The research was well received by the participants of the workshop, who manifested the need for more knowledge about China to understand the complexities of the global lithium industry.

The following week, Dr Ampuero-Ruiz participated in the week-long inaugural event of the Climate Finance Group within the Society for Economic Anthropology. This workshop aimed at mapping the ongoing questions in economic anthropology with regards to climate finance, which has been a growing concern of Dr Ampuero-Ruiz. In the event, our colleague pitched his research proposal about financialisation of green commodities like lithium and copper, and the production of green financial imaginaries.

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At XIV Reunião de Antropologia do Mercosul de 2023, Marina Weinberg organized and Cristóbal Bonelli was a discussant for the session "Spoilage, extraction and destruction in Latin America: bodies, subjectivities and experiences in everyday life ".

Despojo, extractivismos y destrucción en América Latina: cuerpos, subjetividades y experiencias en la vida cotidiana

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How could we imagine, think, feel and practice decoloniality in the 21st century, an era deeply marked by ecological crisis, wars, social outbursts and the exhaustion of our conceptual tools to understand the world?

And how would it be possible to undo our habitual ways of knowing in a way that wonder, and new openings, are continuously possible in the presence of those others we are with?

Anthropology is an interesting case to experiment and think with these questions, as it is the paradigmatic heir of colonial history, scientific racism and capitalist extractivism. In this Worlds of Lithium lecture, Marisol de La Cadena will explore not knowing as epistemic stance and practice towards the possibility of decolonial analysis.

Anthropology, being a quintessential heir of colonial thought and practice, is a discipline that continuously struggles to undo modes of thought deeply rooted in grammars that separate objects from subjects, human from non-humans, self and other, all grammars that have been the conditions of possibility to silence a pluriverse of voices through various forms of violence, exclusions and erasures. Tonight, Marisol de la Cadena will explore not knowing as epistemic stance and practice towards the possibility of decolonial analysis. This not knowing does not imply “not knowing yet.” It does not embrace the modernist ethos of a better, enlightened future, prone to be, indeed, known. Rather than resulting from research as a final and closed outcome, “not knowing” guides it along an open-ended process.

In her talk, De la Cadena will explore “not knowing” as an analytic method and an epistemic stance that performs intertwined tasks: it prevents researchers from merely producing “theoretical” knowledge emerging in the absence of those who inspired its sense of inquiry and curiosity. Besides this, “not knowing” takes our ways of thinking to the limit of its possibilities. Indeed, the reason of the talk is to think how “not knowing” may emerge as a possibility towards decolonial thinking—a phrase in which the processual gerund ‘thinking’ wants to indicate an endless task which does not stop with denunciation, theoretical critique, or renewed moral categorizations. Marisol de la Cadena will propose not knowing as a tool to inhabit learning as an unfinished domain, where decoloniality appears as an ongoing adventure rather as an state awaiting to be achieved.

This talk has been co-organized with SPUI25, and registration is needed. Online option is also possible at the time of registration in the following link: https://spui25.nl/programma/not-knowing-a-possibility-towards-decolonial-thinking...

As climate and ecological collapse looms large, the boundary between knowing and acting in (social) science has been shifting. While environmental scientists have increasingly come closer to policy and activism in order to change the current unsustainable trajectory, the past decades witnessed the growing interest of anthropologists in collaboration with interlocutors. In this talk, professor Morita will discuss an experimental mode of anthropology as a collaborative making of infrastructure for change by drawing on his experience in grass roots experiments to link timber production with forest ecological cycles.

In the past few decades, growing number of Japanese social entrepreneurs and lifestyle activists migrated to rural areas of the country. Many see abandoned houses and farmlands in these depopulated areas as opportunities to experiment on sustainable living and community economy.

The Forest of Craft is one such small-scale experiment to reconnect industry with forest ecological cycles. The project takes up traditional Japanese craft that developed sophisticated use of local forest resources as a model for this circular vision. Through this collaboration, the interlocutor and professor Morita ended up in experimenting with DIY making and ethnography as major means for their effort to reinstall in individuals and the industry sensibility to be affected by changing environment and nonhuman others. This talk put this experience in the context of current debates on collaboration in anthropology, STS and beyond to explore a role of anthropology in a grassroots alliance to tackle imminent ecological crises.

This talk is part of the series 'ACTION,CLIMATE, CRISIS: Anthropological tales in times of climate change’, co-organized by Cristobal Bonelli and Branwyn Poleykett and sponsored by the Worlds of Lithium ERC project.

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Ursula Le Guin (1986) once wrote a story that attempted to displace the patriarchal white male hero dominating stories about tecno-heroic-human evolution, and reminded us that the dominant language had to be continuously reinvented, just as Virginia Woolf proposed to define a hero, in her notebook 'Glossary', as a bottle; heroism was defined as “botulism.” Le Guin, inspired by the containment offered by the bottle, proposed to imagine a container, a carrier bag - not a masculinised weapon - as a figure that could displace the figure of the hero that is so present in the mythology of "modern technology".

'A nice side effect of eschewing the linear, progressive, arrow-killing-Time mode of the techno-heroic, and redefining technology and science as fundamentally a carry bag, rather than a weapon of domination, is that science fiction can then be understood as a much less rigid and narrow field - not necessarily Promethean or apocalyptic at all but, in fact, a genre that is much more realistic that it is mythological. It's a strange realism - but it's a strange reality'.

This workshop is inspired by this strange realism and aims at gathering vital field-work-stories which will hopefully give us, as Le Guin suggested, 'words of the other story, the untold one, the life story that is not under heroic human control’. But rather than mobilizing science fiction as a genre for experimentation, the workshop has been thought as a safe place where to experiment with creative writing, by particularly focusing on how we can ‘dramatize’ the problem of non-human materiality in times of enhanced ecological sensibility and environmental catastrophes.

We want to get inspired by, and learn from, what we call Stories of Eco-Drama, in which the metaphor of dramaturgy is mobilized to explore material compositions and decompositions taking place in specific places, belonging to different pasts, enabling particular futures, and evolving among different actors performing on situated, indeterminate, incomplete and ever-transforming critical ecologies. Indeed, the prefix ‘eco’ invites participants to tell stories that are concerned with ecological tensions, being ‘eco’ an index for both ecology as environment as well as the understanding of ecology as the transformative composition and decomposition of actors at stake in particular, often dramatic, ongoing situations.

The workshop aims at exploring a way of thinking and writing that decenters the human as the main protagonist of our stories. Non-human actors and materialities here really matter, and in this workshop we will follow ‘actors’ in quite a literal way. This is why we also work with the heuristic of an eco-dramaturgy, as we are concerned with how ‘actors’ -understood quite literally as an ‘actor’ of our dramatic times- “performs” different characters in diverse transformative compositions and decompositions entangled with different temporalities.

In this workshop, then, we are both concerned with ways of dramatizing the non-human in our writing, as well as with following actors dramaturgically. The latter means witnessing and trying to give an account of the main reactions at stake in your research field (chemical, political, affective, what have you) as well as to those transformations occurring beyond the problem-solutions paradigm, so hegemonically present in eco-modern attempts to deal with our eco-political predicament. Indeed, rather than embracing heroic success stories or offering normative, moral critiques, we prefer to experiment with practicing an eco-dramaturgy where acting, reacting, and transforming, while ‘staying with the trouble’, entails to stay with, and think and feel, open-ended stories happening far away from heroic ends.

Following from this, the workshop asks:

How to dramatize the non-human within stories of ecological transformation?

What counts as a ‘reaction’ in our stories of ecological composition and decomposition?

What can we learn from the key transformations at stake in our research-fields and their transformative non-human actors and materialities?

Program of the day:

1.30-1.50: Brief Introduction Bonelli plus very short presentation of participants

1.50-2.20: Think Piece 1

Controlling unwanted reactions: a visit to an New Energy Vehicles (NEV) factory

Writer: Pablo Ampuero. Story tellers: Anita Hardon & Sam van der Lugt

2.20-2.50. Think Piece 2

Unclean: a drama in five acts

Writer: Annemarie Mol. Story tellers: Laurens Bakker & Wakana Suzuki

2.50-3.20: Think Piece 3

On Turbulence

Writer: Tina Harris. Story tellers: Roos Metselaar & Maksim Novokreshchenov

3.20-3.30: BREAK

3.30-4: Think Piece 4

Dutch water stories

Writer: Oskar Verkaaik. Story tellers: Fenna Smits & Rene Nissen

4-4.30: Think piece 5

Harlequin’s Rebellion. Old regimes, new subversions

Writer: Martha-Cecilia Dietrich. Story tellers: Marina Weinberg & Nicolas Sollazzo

4.30-5: Think Piece 6

Smelly: A bromine way of making connections

Writer: Amade M’Charek Story tellers: Michelle Geraerts & Else Vogel

5-5.20: Final Discussion:

Rethinking ‘eco-drama’ and ‘reactions’: What can we learn from the think pieces? Marisol de la Cadena and Atsuro Morita

5.20-6: Open discussion.

6-6.45: Dinner

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In this lecture, Dr. Hugo Romero presented a critical analysis of Chile’s new lithium policy, based on the physical geographic knowledge and the socio-ecological and territorial power relations that exist in the salt flats of the Atacama Desert.

This lecture was co-organized with Cedla, the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation at the University of Amsterdam, and also included the participation of Chilean geographer Marcela Robles.

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Cristobal Bonelli participated at the workshop 'Anthropology and Degrowth: deepening the dialogue', aimed at exploring the (partial) connections between Anthropology and Degrowth scholarship, and which was organized by Gabriela Cabaña, Lorenzo Velotti and Luisa Muñoz Sueiro.

Cristobal also presented part of his ethnographic findings within lithium extractive industries at the public roundtable 'Re-imagining transitions out of the growth paradigm', where we presented his work in progress paper 'Reducing Emissions and Omissions by reactivating common sense: the Case of Lithium'.

This was an inspiring event that brought together academics, researchers, activists, and artists experimenting with the creation of alliances in different parts of the world, and concerned with re-making academic knowledge as a useful tool beyond universities and beyond bounded, self-referential, scholarship.

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On Thursday, 4 May 2023, Michelle Geraerts and Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz, hosted lecturers and students of architecture from the Institute für Zeitgenössische Kunst (IZK) at the Technische Universität (TU) Graz, Austria. After a round of introductions, the members of the WOL team in Amsterdam presented some ideas and methods connected to their research in Norway and the People’s Republic of China. Then, Dr Rose-Anne Gush and Philipp Sattler, Assistant Professors from the IZK TU Graz, shared their experience with art-based research on lithium extraction. Gush and Sattler lead a course that is collectively investigating on the entangled relations between society, economics, and environment from an exploratory lithium tunnel in the Koralm mountains in Carinthia, Austria. The dialogue centred around the methodologies of ethnographic and art-based research. Amongst the most discussed points were the potential to explore the configuration of temporalities and how different histories of resistance, of human and non-human agencies, are manifested and intertwined with the expansion of the lithium industry. The website of the IZK TU Graz is a good resource to learn more about the many interesting explorations undertaken by our guests, like “how Does One Get to Own a Mountain?” or “When the Dust Unsettles”....

The European Research Council selected the Worlds of Lithium project as a relevant research for their Science-Stories section. One of the take-home lessons stemming from Cristobal Bonelli’s interview, is that a serious reflection about the ever-increasing expansion of the mining frontier is necessary, given the dramatic rise of the Earth’s temperature and that planetary boundaries cannot be stretched any further. The whole interview is available through this Link...

Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz was invited as a speaker to discuss Chinese investments in the Lithium Triangle, a saltpan-rich region in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. The event took place online on 21 March 2023, and was organised by the Red China-América Latina: Enfoques Multidisciplinarios (REDCAEM), Universidad de Tres de Febrero (UNTREF) and DangDai Magazine. A recording of the event is available through this link....

Professor Gabrielle Hetch, together with PhD candidate Jaime Landinez, both from Stanford University, visited Marina Weinberg and Cristobal Bonelli in Northern Chile. The Worlds of Lithium project, in collaboration with the Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo (IIAM-UCN), organized a workshop with IIAM members Lautaro Ñuñez, Valentina Figueroa, Jacinta Arthur and Fernanda Kalazich to discuss current research trends in Atacama desert concerning lithium extraction and beyond. Moreover, WOL organized a joint fieldwork with professor Hetch and visited some places in the Andean Altiplano, as well as the city of Tocopilla, where they all met WOL collaborator Damir Galaz Mandakovic. This first collaborative moment will hopefully lead to long-term collaboration between the WOL ERC project and current research by Hetch on the earthly implications of the Anthropocene concerning lithium extraction....

Cristobal Bonelli and Branwyn Poleykett organized the second session of the series of seminars ‘Action, Climate, Crisis: Anthropological tales in times of climate change’, which brings scholars working on climate and environmental crisis to Amsterdam to engage with UvA anthropologists.

The second seminar of the series was in charged by Professor Jennifer Gabrys, Chair in Media, Culture and Environment in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and had Tina Harris and Martha Dietrich as discussants.

Gabrys’ talk entitled Atmospheric Citizens: How to Make Breathable Worlds built upon material from the book ‘Citizens of Worlds: Open-Air Toolkits for Environmental Struggle’, and discussed how atmospheric citizens are constituted through practices of sensing environments and working to build more breathable worlds. It described collaborations to monitor air pollution from fracking infrastructure, to document emissions in urban environments, and to create air-quality gardens. Professor Gabrys showed how people respond to, care for, and struggle to transform environmental conditions informs the political subjects and collectives they become as they strive for more breathable worlds.

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Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium, and Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz were invited as speakers in a public discussion entitled “Conversations: Past, Presents, and Futures of the Environmental Humanities” on 29 November 2022. The event was convened by the PhD Council of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis and it took place at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. More information through this link....

The ERC Worlds of Lithium team held a closed workshop with Dr Martina Gamba (CONICET) to learn more about her knowledge and experience as a researcher on the physics and chemistry of lithium-ion batteries.

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The ERC Worlds of Lithium team held a workshop to share work-in-progress from team members with international and local guests at Universiteit van Amsterdam.  Dr Cristóbal Bonelli presented his paper on “Dramaturgy of Lithium”, prepared together with Dr Martina Gamba (CONICET), while Dr Marina Weinberg presented “The Dystopian Off-sites of Lithium Production”, and Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz presented a draft titled “New Energy Vehicles and the Political Geoecology of China’s Ecological Civilization”. The main objective of the workshop was to open a discussion on these works and collectively think how to improve them for a final publication....

Dr Cristóbal Bonelli gave keynote lecture at the Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC) on 9 November 2022. Dr Bonelli’s presentation was titled “A Chemical Dramaturgy of Lithium: Learning from Metamorphic Worlds” and was prepared together with Dr Martina Gamba (CONICET).

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Dr Cristóbal Bonelli was invited as keynote speaker for the “Conflictos Territoriales” series at the Centro de Estudios de Conflicto y Cohesión Social in Chile on 7 November 2022. His presentation was titled “Cosechas sin Siembra y Dinámicas de Borde en el Salar de Atacama” and a recording is available through our YouTube channel....

Dr Cristóbal Bonelli was invited as a speaker for the PhD Fall Workshop organised by the Netherlands Graduate Research School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC), 7-9 November 2022. The theme of the workshop was “The View from Somewhere: Geographies of Knowledge and STS”. More information through this link....

Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, representing the ERC Worlds of Lithium, co-convened the 2022-23 series of department seminars of the Anthropology Department at Universiteit van Amsterdam. The first seminar took place on 22 September 2022, where Dr Bonelli provided an introductory talk and counted with Prof Dr Bram Buscher (Wageningen University & Research) as guest speaker....

Dissemination Poster - Bogotá, Colombia...

Marina Weinberg presented her work at the Masters Program 'Estudios Interdisciplinarios sobre Desarrollo', Centro Interdisciplinario de Estudios sobre Desarrollo-CIDER, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia...

Marina Weinberg gave a Keynote at the international Forum on Ecological Transitions organized by CENSAT Agua Viva, CIDER Universidad de los Andes, Fundación Heinrich Böll, Colombia https://live.eventtia.com/es/foro-transicion-energetica-transformaciones-socio-ecologicas...

Paper presented in a Session - Session 'Uncommon Explorations between Green Technologies, Climate Hopes, and the Anthropological Imagination', 17th EASA Biennial Conference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSEJ9UAXxS4&ab_channel=NomadIT...

Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz co-convened with Jonas Köppel (The Graduate Institute of Geneva) the panel “Uncommon Explorations between Green Technologies, Climate Hopes, and the Anthropological Imagination” at the EASA 2022 Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Both sessions of the panel were chaired by Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium. The papers authored by Dr Marina Weinberg, Zane Datava (NUST) and Anna-Sophie Hobi (Norwegian University of Life Sciences), and Dr Diane Ayeh (Heimholtz Centre for Environmental Research, UFZ) were discussed by Dr Simone Abram (Durham University). In the second session, Dr Horacio Ortiz (CNRS & ECNU) discussed papers by Dr Pauline Destrée (Durham University), Daniela Soto (University of Sussex), Kārlis Lakševics (Wageningen University & Research), and Dr Selina Gallo-Cruz (Syracuse University).

Recordings of first and second session are available through our YouTube channel.

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9-14 July, 2024. Barcelona, Spain

Presentation by Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz (tbc) at the 18th Biennial Conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA): Doing and Undoing with Anthropology, at the University of Barcelona.

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Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz presented his paper 'China’s “Green Road” to Latin America: Limits to Energy Transitions in the Post-Pandemic New Normality' in the panel 13.01 ‘China y América Latina: Perspectivas Post-Pandemia' at the 10mo. Congreso Internacional del Consejo Europeo de Investigaciones Sociales de América Latina – CEISAL 2022, that took place between 13 and 15 June 2022 in Helsinki, Finland....

Marina Weinberg was invited as a Keynote at the panel ‘Energy transitions from below: From climate colonialism to energy sovereignty’, Prince Claus Chair Roundtable discussion, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam...

Dissemination News...

Lecturer - “Politics in Latin America” (ANT 144, Prof. Marisol de la Cadena) Anthropology Dept. University of California at Davis...

Dr Marina Weinberg co-organised and chaired the panel “Mundos de litio: Entre potencias, impotencias y nuevas fuerzas políticas”. Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium, was a participant in the panel, together with Dr Cristina Dorador (Universidad de Antofagasta), Dr Javiera Barandiarán (UC Santa Barbara), Dr Felix Dorn (Universität Innsbruck), and Dr Martina Gamba (UNLP). Dr Marisol de la Cadena (UC Davis) was the discussant. A recording of the event is available in the following link....

Dr Cristóbal Bonelli gave a masterclass lecture in Contemporary Anthropology at the Netherlands School of Anthropology, hosted by the Vrije Universiteit van Amsterdam. The masterclass was entitled “Ontology as an Anthropological Tool: Limits and Potentialities”, and it was devoted to critically thinking about a contemporary and often contentious theoretical orientation and methodological sensibility pertaining to the "ontological turn” in anthropology, STS, and beyond. More information through this link....

As part of her research for Worlds of Lithium, Michelle Geraerts has organised a pilot workshop with a group of scientists at the department of Chemical Engineering on the 24th of February 2022. The topic was 'Possible battery futures' and the scientists explored different future trajectories for electromobility, battery developments, and the role of science in recycling EV batteries for 2050, through creative mapping methods....

Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz was invited to write a column for the website of the Red China-América Latina: Enfoques Multidisiplinarios (REDCAEM) about his ongoing research about China’s Ecological Civilisation. The column is available in Spanish....

This scholarly collective explores the multiple analytical and empirical capacities that chemical philosophy and chemistry practice afford when thought materially and metaphorically. Our scholarly collective seeks to tap chemistry—the science of transformation—and its historically shifting methods as inspiration for thinking the unstable materializations of our world. It asks: what capacities and modalities emerge when we think of the chemical and chemical process as substantively, semiotically, and/or poetically agentive of processes far beyond the molecular? Our scholarly commitment to engage with chemistry is not because we deem it the purveyor of truths or the real. Rather, it is to embark on a speculative experiment: how might imaginative appropriation of chemistry’s transfiguring methods engender innovative ways for thinking turbulent sociomaterial relations? Broadly speaking, the residency would have two aims. First, it will develop ways to conceptualize the material beyond surface or shape, and attend to the cataclysmic and transformative chemistries (both literal and metaphoric) that constitute matters of concern in our worlds. Second, it will consider the affordances that thinking with chemistry extends—an affective and valanced grammar that (rather than denunciatory, deconstructive, or agnostic) suspends a processual ethic, and aesthetic, for navigating a world composed of complex relations.

Collaborators include: Suzana Sawyer (Associate Professor, Anthropology, UC Davis), Andrew Barry (Professor, Geography, University College London), Cristobal Bonelli (Associate Professor, Anthropology, University of Amsterdam), Stefanie Graeter (Assistant Professor, Latin American Studies, University of Arizona), Evan Heplers-Smith (Assistant Professor, History, Duke University), Melody Jue (Associate Professor, English, UC Santa Barbara), Dimitris Papadopoulos (Professor, Science, Technology and Society, University of Nottingham), Maria Puig de la Bellacasa’s (Associate Professor, Center for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick), Doug Rogers (Professor, Anthropology, Yale University), Nicholas Shapiro (Assistant Professor, Society and Genetics, UCLA), Jerry Zee (Assistant Professor, Anthropology & High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton), Marisol de la Cadena (Professor, Anthropology, UC Davis) and Cori Hayden (Professor, Anthropology, UC Berkeley).

Link

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The Belgian site Engineeringnet reproduced parts of the interview with Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium, that was previously published in the faculty’s newspaper. The article is available in Dutch....

The research of Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium, is showcased in the institutional newsletter of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the University of Amsterdam. The article is available in English and Dutch....

Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz was interviewed for the Observatorio Parlamentario Asia Pacífico—an initiative by Chile’s Library of Congress that provides scholarly information to policymakers and general audience—about his research on China’s Ecological Civilisation and the lithium industry. The article is available in Spanish....

As a visiting PhD at the department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture (NTNU Trondheim), Michelle Geraerts presented her research to the department at a workshop titled 'Energy Group seminar' in October 2021. It was the start of a stimulating conversation and research environment as part of the Energy Group of this department, which includes among other historians, STS scholars, anthropologists, and geographers. Additionally, Michelle presented her research updates during the 'Energy Day', a conference day dedicated to energy-related research of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture on December 1st, 2021....

Dr Pablo Ampuero-Ruiz was interviewed for the Observatorio Parlamentario Asia Pacífico, an initiative by Chile’s Library of Congress that provides scholarly information to policymakers and general audience. Dr Ampuero-Ruiz addressed China’s commitments at COP26 and the challenges the country faces in its mission to decarbonise its economy by 2060. The article is available in Spanish....

“Asuntos avanzados en etnografía” (ANT3003, Prof. Marcelo González) (with Cristóbal Bonelli) Antrhopology Dept. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile...

The Chilean magazine Ladera Sur published an article showcasing Dr Cristobal Bonelli’s research in the Atacama Desert. It specifically engages with the transdisciplinary article co-authored by Dr Cristóbal Bonelli and Dr Cristina Dorador (University of Antofagasta) titled “Endangered Salares: Micro-Disasters in Northern Chile” (Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2021, 4(1), 1:29). The news article is available in Spanish....

The seminar series “Diálogos de Litio: S.O.S.tenibilidad y Extractivismo en el desierto de Atacama” presented an opportunity for public dialogues with relevant scholars, local leaders, and scholars of varied expertise around the problems and challenges associated with the extractivism of lithium in the Atacama desert. A total of seven sessions took part between March and September 2021, providing novel and multi-layered analyses about the dynamics, complexities, and the social and material transformations unfolding in the places where lithium is extracted.

For the coming years, the series will explore other territories in transformation in Norway and China. Finally, in the course of 2024, it expects to provide an interregional and intercontinental discussion that responds to the challenges of rethinking the S.O.S.tenibilidad, and stimulate a collaborative conversation between experts from different countries. Go to DIALOGUES on this webpage to see the full agenda.

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During her research stay at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim (NTNU), Michelle Geraerts presented her research questions to the scientific community working with batteries at the 'Team Battery Seminar' at Scandic Lerkendal in September 2021. The presentation sparked different ongoing conversations on interdisciplinarity and battery developments in Norway....

Dr Marina Weinberg presented her paper “Neoliberalismo de metal: De la extracción mineral a la abstracción financiera” in the panel “Neoliberalismos en América Latina: Trayectorias, Subjetividades y Vida Cotidiana” at the VI Congreso de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Antropología, 23-28 November 2020...

Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium, presented his paper “Pensar la herida: Fragmentos desde los límited de la política” co-written with Dr Marisol de la Cadena (UC Davis) in a panel organised by Dr Richard Kernaghan (University of Florida) and Dr Gabriela Zamonano (El Colegio de Michoacán) titled “Reivindicar el fragmento: La escritura etnográfica a partir de ‘lo fílmico’” at the VI Congreso de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Antropología, 23-28 November 2020...

Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium, presented the paper “To fix or not to fix: Scales, survival units, and infra-decarbonisation in Northern Chile” in the panel “Post-Carbon Infrastructures: Remaking Human/Earth Relations in the Anthropocene”, convened by Dr Hannah Knox (UCL), Dr Andrew Barry (UCL), and Dr Penny Harvey (University of Manchester). The presentation took place on 17 September 2020 in The Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future conference co-organised by the Royal Anthropological Association, the Royal Geographic Society, the British Academy, the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, and the BM’s Department for Africa, Oceania and the Americas, 14-18 September 2020....

Dr Cristóbal Bonelli, PI of Worlds of Lithium, was the commentator of a documentary titled “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch”, directed by Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, and Edward Burtynsky, at Stylos, in Delft, the Netherlands. See more....