The temporalities of natural resources extraction: Imagined futures and the spatialization of the lithium industry in Chile

Abstract

Lithium is expected to be a key resource for the upcoming economy, mainly for its linkage to green energies. A substantial amount of its production occurs in developing countries, promising positive outcomes for local and global actors. Based on the “Imagined Futures'' framework developed by German Sociologist Jens Beckert (2016), this article aims at examining the role of fictional expectations in local, national, and global processes of spatialization regarding lithium production, extraction, and commercialization. In particular, this article based on the case of Chile asks how fictional expectations constructed around the lithium industry explain decisive and conflictual dynamics within different spatial scales in the context of the global production networks and value chains of this industry. We argue that analyzing fictional expectations allows us to understand these dynamics. At the same time, the case of the lithium industry in Chile provides an opportunity to explore the role of territories and spatialization when studying fictional expectations. To do so, the paper draws on extensive empirical evidence from interviews with 30 key actors linked to the lithium industry. The main results show how fictional expectations and imaginaries about the future economy produce tensions and conflicts at the local level, at the time that pressure actors to make decisions in the present based on images about a future. Global value chains, economic forecasts, and political demands for greener technologies also provide narratives and imaginaries, feeding contesting interests, positions, and views about potential benefits and consequences of lithium extraction, tensioning the different scales of decision-making.