Fieldwork in Chile #3 | How do women benefit from lithium mining?
Students and professors from the “Mining for the Energy Transition” UvA research group are visiting the Atacama salt flats in Chile this spring, the place with the largest lithium reserves in the world. Several members of the group are reporting on their trip to Folia. This week, it’s Sanne Jansen (24), a master’s student in International Development Studies. “I didn’t feel entirely comfortable at first because I was the only outsider.”
“It is difficult to briefly explain what the conflict surrounding lithium mining in Chile is really about,” says Sanne. “Unlike other forms of mining, lithium is extracted from a deep layer of groundwater that flows from the Andes Mountains into Chile’s largest salt lake, the Salar de Atacama, and has been for thousands of years.”
Sanne comments: “Mining companies pump up this extremely salty water and allow it to evaporate in the sun, leaving a high (six percent) concentration of lithium. The salt lake is in the Atacama Desert, and many people worry about the long-term effects of the pumping on the desert’s arid, fragile, and particular ecosystem. So far, there is just too little evidence that lithium mining is very harmful, but that does nothing to detract from (local) concerns.”
Transitioning to clean energy requires large amounts of raw materials. But clean energy technologies require many more metals and minerals than fossil fuels like oil and coal. As the demand for “cleaner” resources increases, social and environmental tensions arise where these resources are extracted. The same is true of lithium, a light metal used to produce batteries for electric vehicles and power grids. The demand for lithium is expected to continue to grow in the coming decades.
The Mining for the Energy Transition research project is interdisciplinary and looks at economic, environmental, technological, social, political, and business aspects of the energy system, energy transition, and at sustainable goals. The research project is funded by ENLENS (Energy transition through the lens of Sustainable Developments Goals), one of the UvA’s interfaculty research priorities.
“What I see is that the two lithium companies, SQM and Albemarle, are actively involved in the local communities by, for example, organizing projects or giving money directly. On the one hand, this creates opportunities, but on the other hand, it also creates a dependency. In any case, it minimizes possible opposition and avoids direct conflict.”
“It also creates a lot of change within local communities, because people interact with each other and their environment differently. My research focuses specifically on the position of women in the Salar de Atacama. What effects do women experience from mining? And how do they deal with the opportunities and challenges that mining offers?”
“I've been in San Pedro, the only (small) town in the region, for almost two months now, but the effects of mining are more pronounced in the various villages in the Salar de Atacama because in San Pedro the focus is mainly on tourism. During the carnival festival in Toconao, a village south of San Pedro, it immediately becomes clear to me that carnival is very different here than in the Netherlands.”
“At first I don’t feel completely at ease because I am the only outsider, but fortunately everyone is very nice and welcoming. I meet Jaime, who turns out to work for a lithium company. He tells me all about his village and the traditions surrounding carnival. For example, before you take a sip of beer, you are supposed to throw some on the ground first with your left hand and then with your right as an offering to Pachamama (Mother Earth).”
“We also talk a bit about his work in the mine. He works 12 hours a day for seven days, followed by seven days of rest. It’s quite an intense schedule, also because he spends the night at the company camp during that long work week.”
“Jaime is happy with it, though, because it allows him to use those seven days off to do other things, like travel. But this way the miners are away from their families a lot. That’s why carnival is a special and intimate occasion where everyone can be together again after a long time.”
Later in San Pedro, I speak to an anti-mining activist who tells me about how she built her own house and grows her own vegetables. According to her, this is happening less and less because the mining companies are not only initiating projects and giving money but lately have also been offering women opportunities to work in the company or receive training in the city. It’s emancipation with contradictions: on the one hand, it creates more opportunities for women, but on the other hand, it also changes communal ties and culture.
“Besides the fact that this has been an extraordinary experience for me and I have learned a lot about local traditions, it is now clear to me that everything and everyone is connected to mining in some way.”
