Mining Indigenous Territories - Agree to disagree?

Banner Photo: Roadblock by local communities and residents of San Pedro de Atacama in protest of Corfo’s agreement with SQM (February, 2018). Source: Ramón Morales Balcázar, Observatorio Plurinacional de Salares Andinos

In a recent video report journalists from the Guardian follow indigenous activist Sonja Ramos in her struggle to protect the Salar de Atacama in the north of Chile. The salt flat is endangered by lithium mining, which consumes large quantities of water in one of the driest places on earth. Disregarding local concerns about its impacts, the biggest company in the Salar, SQM, wants to expand its operations. In protest, Sonja and her allies walk more than 300 km through the desert to confront state authorities in the regional capital of Antofagasta.

As other stories on the issue, the Guardian report addresses its viewers as battery users. What are the consequences of our consumption patterns in other parts of the world? “Will green technology kill Chile’s deserts?”

Implicitly or explicitly, these stories raise ethical questions: Is it right to destroy certain places so we can use ever more and larger batteries? Appearing as the marginalized but rightful owners and defenders of these places, the indigenous protagonists in these stories leave a lasting impression.

The countries that buy lithium [should] understand that they are destroying a place far more valuable […] than all the lithium they could extract.

Sonya Ramos, indigenous activist, in the Guardian report

In a recent journal article in The Extractive Industries and Society, co-authored with Mauricio Lorca, Manuel Olivera, Melisa Escosteguy, Morgan Scoville-Simonds, and Marc Hufty, we have taken a closer look at the role of indigenous people in lithium mining. We note that they are often represented as uniform and unified actors in globally circulating stories.

In contrast, the people we met during fieldwork around Salar de Atacama took diverging and ambivalent positions toward lithium mining. As anthropological research in sites of extraction has shown, such ambivalence is important to acknowledge for the sake of the people who actually inhabit these places.

In this blog article we raise the question of how such ambivalence in indigenous voices might shape ethical considerations around the energy transition.

What ‘agreement’ entails

Indigenous people have become crucial actors in global debates and local conflicts around mining. By adopting Convention 169 in 1989, the International Labor Organization established Indigenous peoples’ rights to territorial self-determination in international law. Most countries in South America have ratified the convention, turning indigenous rights into nationally binding norms. Chile did so in 2008. Many communities have since drawn on indigenous identities in local conflicts with more powerful actors, such as mining companies, who are intervening in their territories.

For the industry, indigenous communities have effectively become unavoidable interlocutors. Experts now rank the risks of social conflict in mining sites among the highest. In light of this, companies seek an additional “social license” to operate. In contrast to the concessions granted by the State, this license consists of bilateral agreements with communities. While these agreements have enabled communities to negotiate certain benefits, they have also left them divided and facing internal tensions.

In our article we unpack how agreements with lithium companies have changed the structure and dynamic of Atacameño communities around Salar de Atacama. We find that residents are equally concerned about the environmental risks that lithium mining poses to the salt flat and its water and biodiversity resources. Yet, they disagree on how to engage with the companies that are posing these risks.

Some are in favor of the recent agreements, which allocate a share of company revenue directly to communities for local development. Others contend that these agreements have made people dependent on the companies, corrupting communities and their leaders. Lithium mining has thus increased tensions within and between Atacameño communities. Because of these growing divisions people increasingly question whether their organizations still represent them.

A place for disagreement?

What do we make of such disaccord among indigenous voices? Many readers may not be used to thinking of indigenous people in such a contentious way. Usually, we encounter them as different from ourselves yet inseparable from each other. However, in light of the dominant rhetoric of ‘agreement’ in extractive industries and governments, it seems crucial to make room for disagreement. This inevitably includes disagreement within indigenous communities.

Let us first take a look at the rhetoric of agreement. Here is how the SQM spokesperson, Alejandro Bucher, is quoted in the Guardian report.

We believe it’s only with dialogue and working with the local communities that we will be able to be here in the long term.

Alejandro Bucher, SQM spokesperson, in the Guardian report

By definition, in Alejandro’s rendering there is no room for disagreement. The company can only stay if they get communities to agree with their presence in the salt flat. And as we have mentioned above, they did reach an agreement. Yet, who agreed, and to what?

Let us listen again to someone who refuses to agree. Here is how the indigenous activist, Sonya Ramos, is quoted in the Guardian report.

They think they are doing the right thing, and that green globalization is correct. But there is more than energy here. We are fighting for our life, with everything we have.

Sonya Ramos, indigenous activist, in the Guardian report

Sonya contests SQM’s presence in the salt flat, with everything she has. Yet, she disagrees with much more than a simple mining project. “There is more than energy here.” To her, the salt flat is more than an accumulation of minerals needed for green energy; and at risk are more than water and biodiversity resources. At stake for her is what in the report she calls the “spiritual pact” that her ancestors made with this particular place.

So far, the story seems familiar: indigenous people resisting the false promises of modern development. The Guardian report leaves some room for optimism: an environmental court has ruled in Sonya’s favor.

Yet, the success of her struggle is uncertain. The company will appeal against the court’s decision. The corporate rhetoric of agreement then hardly corresponds to what happens on the ground. In fact, not everyone’s agreement is required for lithium mining to take place, and not all stakes count as legitimate reasons for opposition. How do people on the ground grapple with this situation?

Let us listen to someone who accepted the agreements with the lithium companies in the Atacama salt flat. Here is an excerpt from an interview with a Jorge, a mine worker and local resident from Toconao.

If they can dry out the Salar de Atacama, they will. So, since we will pay the cost of the drying Salar we have to squeeze out [of the mining company] what we can, in that same cold logic. I agree with the claims of the protesters, but what do we do? We stand by and watch [the Salar] being exploited while we keep arguing.

Interview with resident from Toconao conducted on March, 3, 2020

Agree to disagree?

Sonya and Jorge take rather different positions toward lithium mining, one refusing the company agreements while the other accepts them. Yet, their positions hardly stand in opposition to each other. Both share the same concerns for their territory, reaching different conclusions on what can and should be done, based on their experiences and expectations.

Anthropologists have vividly discussed such differences in light of the so-called ontological turn. Some have urged us to take seriously indigenous people like Sonya, who radically disagree with modern development on grounds that are incomprehensible in scientific or legal terms. Yet others have cautioned us not to disregard indigenous people like Jorge, who juggle the ambivalent realities of marginalized lives and places.

In our article we argue that stories about mining in indigenous territories need to represent such diversity in indigenous voices. To craft such stories, we suggest taking a step back and ask what “indigenous” means to begin with.

Scholars have long argued that indigenous identities emerge from situated lives and political struggles – they are dynamic, not immutable. Each place, each community, each struggle engenders particular – and always diverse – indigenous positions.

Surely, it is crucial to highlight the shared conditions of Indigenous peoples around the world. Yet, it is equally important to talk about disagreement to counter the corporate rhetoric that ends the story as soon as an agreement has been reached. To grapple with the ambivalent ethics of the energy transition, the stories have to continue – one place, one community, one struggle at a time.

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This article was presented at the Energy Ethics 2021 conference on October 27, 2021, organised by the St. Andrews Centre for Energy Ethics, as part of the “Lithium Connections” panel. It is based on a journal article in The Extractive Industries and Society, written by Mauricio Lorca, Manuel Olivera, Melisa Escosteguy, Jonas Köppel, Morgan Scoville-Simonds, and Marc Hufty.