CHINA: from Lithium carbonate mineral to battery. Forthcoming in 2021.

This subproject studies how the processes through which lithium carbonate mineral is turned into lithium-ion batteries are remaking the relations between citizens, battery labourers and their urban landscapes in the city of Shenzhen, in China, one of the fastest-growing cities in the world and where the biggest lithium-ion battery factories are located. Regulations of greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector have made Shenzhen the first city to electrify 100 percent of its public buses.
The project explores how a critical tension between the exponential financial and urban growth of Shenzhen and the strong drive for low-carbon transitions is taking place in the ecologies of practice involving lithium-ion battery production workers, energy policy makers, and private lithium-ion batteries’ investors.