Geographies of lithium in Bolivia: conflicts over conditions

Abstract

Lithium is a metal with a rising global demand due to its applicability in batteries for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Bolivia holds the biggest lithium reserves in the world but has not been able to industrialize lithium to be considered a major exporter to the global market. Instead, the extraction and industrialization of lithium has been full of conflicts between government actors and some social groups of Potosí dissatisfied with their resources management decisions. This thesis examines how social movements and the Bolivian government have had conflicts and disputes around lithium since its discovery in the 1970s, and how these conflicts have shaped the contemporary lithium scenario of the lithium industry in Bolivia. I conducted a historical overview based mainly on secondary resources, to understand the roots of Potosí’s social movements demands. I used a thematic analysis over three case studies of conflicts over lithium to identify similarities between events and understand what the main themes around these conflicts are. I collected primary information from Bolivian Legal Regulations about lithium, institutional documents of the Bolivian government and its ministries, and three archives of Bolivian digital newspapers: Los Tiempos, El Diario and La Razón. This study contributes to the socio-ecological knowledge over conflicts on lithium extraction. The key finding was that the struggles over lithium in Bolivia have unfolded due to the battle for control and participation in the process and not to the industrialization of the natural resource itself. Secondly, the collective memory of natural resource extraction, built since colonial times, has shaped the motivations, and demands of social movements from the region of Potosí.