Project description
Transitions towards post fossil fuel societies: an anthropological study of lithium-based strategies
Replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy tops the EU’s list of priorities as regards efforts to reduce the continent’s impact on global warming. Supporting the development of lithium-ion batteries is important as these can be used for electric vehicles (EVs). The EU-funded Worlds of Lithium project will examine how strategies of transition from fossil fuel transport to electric mobility powered by lithium-ion batteries are deployed in three key countries: Chile, China and Norway. Chile is the world’s largest lithium producer, China the largest producer of lithium-ion batteries, while Norway envisages being the world’s first 'zero-emission' electric transport country. The project will study the different ways transitions towards electric transport societies are taking place in these countries. This will be studied through a transnational documentation of the knowledge practices from scientists, policymakers, grassroots communities and lithium-ion battery manufacturers.
Objective
Worlds of Lithium is a multi-sited and transnational study that examines how the strategic replacement of fossil fuels with electric transport powered by lithium-ion batteries is taking place in Chile, the largest lithium producer worldwide, China, the world leader in lithium-ion battery production, and Norway, likely to become the world’s first ‘zero emission’ electric vehicle country. The overall research questions of the project are: How do planetary strategies to decarbonize transport act upon the landscapes and societies where a) lithium is extracted, b) turned into technology and c) used and potentially reused and recycled? How can the different ways in which these strategies take place inform non-destructive approaches to collaborative responsible actions to phase out fossil fuels—or decrease their utilization?
Worlds of Lithium will innovatively answer these questions through a transnational documentation of the knowledges and practices through which scientists, grassroots communities, policy makers, and lithium-ion battery producers are differently responding to ecological transformations and disruptions at stake in transitions to sustainable societies. The project will explore such knowledges and practices with a special focus on the effects strategies to respond to global warming have on existing socio-economic and eco-political planetary inequalities. By studying how planetary efforts for decarbonizing transport trigger different processes in resource-making, the project will not only enrich the anthropology of natural resources, but it will also create ground-breaking conceptual tools to support, think, and document emerging collaborations for sustainability capable of powering planetary eco-responsibility. Thus, the project will innovatively theorize new imaginaries to think about what counts as sustainable transitions in times of enhanced ecological sensitivity.
Fields of science
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Funding Scheme
ERC-STG - Starting GrantHost institution
1012WX Amsterdam
Netherlands