Lithium and development imaginaries in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia

The world’s largest deposits of lithium lie in brines found underneath salt flats in the desert between Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. Globally, lithium may reduce fossil fuel use by making batteries for cars and renewable energy storage more affordable. This article analyzes ongoing debates about lithium in these three countries to identify what hopes, fears and expectations different stakeholders are bringing to debates about lithium. My approach builds on the idea of resource imaginaries, particularly the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries that highlights the importance of science and technology to projections of desirable futures. I analyze the tensions, visions and metaphors used by different stakeholders, including activists, the media, and state and industry officials, to imagine and thus legitimate lithium extraction. This study finds three co-existing positions in these debates: lithium as a commodity, as a strategic resource or as the subject of a sociotechnical imaginary. Chile, Argentina and Bolivia are converging on the last of these, best described as a reimagining of the relationship between mining and development in which lithium, through innovation and industry, will redefine the relationship between Latin American economies and global markets. This imaginary projects a binary between raw and industrial materials and deterministically assumes that science and technology will transform the former into the latter. Disagreements and challenges notwithstanding, the article argues that this imaginary is evidence of a crisis of confidence in development that is creating space for a more dynamic debate about the social value of mining and the proper role of the state in development. This convergence will have also implications for how sustainable, equitable and reliable lithium production will be.