Beyond extractivist logic? Contested dynamics of lithium frontier expansion in Chile

Abstract

This paper examines Chile's recent and ongoing efforts to expand lithium extraction to new salt flats beyond the Salar de Atacama. Using Sovacool's “4Es” or Political Ecology of Low-Carbon Transitions framework, we analyze the tensions surrounding this expansion, focusing on its social, environmental, and political implications through the processes of enclosure, exclusion, encroachment, and entrenchment. Drawing on documentary analysis and interviews with key stakeholders, the study highlights the risks of exacerbating historical injustices in local communities and ecosystems, as well as the government's responses to address these issues, alongside their challenges and limitations. It underscores the need for constant scrutiny of current policies promoting the expansion of the extractive frontier and their potential impacts in Chile and beyond. This oversight is crucial to avoid replicating harmful and unequal socio-economic and environmental dynamics of the past, enabling a more equitable and sustainable transition within resource-rich peripheral economies seeking to leverage their comparative advantages to advance new development models and move beyond extractivist logics.