Anna-Sophie Hobi
Resource extraction has been one of my continuous interests. Having written my MA thesis on a copper mining town in Zambia and followed commodity traders to Switzerland, I am now studying (future) Norwegian lithium-ion battery production for my PhD at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Depending on resources like lithium coming from afar, the emerging industry is evoking visions of post-oil worlds as well as glorious industrial pasts in the small towns Gigafactories are being built. My curiosity revolves around the hopes of reindustrialisation and the meanings of economic growth our futures.
Felix Dorn
I work as university assistant (post doc) at the Department of Development Studies, University of Vienna. After studying International Economic Studies, for my PhD project I focused on the global lithium production network and social-ecological conflicts in Argentina and Chile. My current research focuses on the global political economy of decarbonization and the energy transition, including critical raw materials such as lithium and energy carriers like hydrogen. Next to my research interests, I also engage with human-environment relations in the context of my photography.
Melisa Escosteguy
During my anthropology degree at the National University of Salta, I became interested in the study of social ecological conflicts. This led me to get involved in different movements struggling for environmental justice. Back then I also became aware of the importance of scientific research in identifying inequalities and contributing to the construction of more just and sustainable futures. My interest in lithium is tied to this experience, and as a PhD student I am currently focusing on lithium production in Argentina.
My fascination for lithium was born when I became a PhD candidate in anthropology at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, Switzerland. As an anthropologist I take a very broad view on my research subject, questioning oft-repeated assumptions of what it is and what it can do. Approaching lithium in this way has been a very inspirational journey that has led me to different places where very different issues are at stake. Lithium matters in all of them; but how? For now, I have put on hold my work on lithium in medicine to finish my thesis on the technopolitics of lithium extraction and use between Bolivia and Germany.
Having worked with neighbourhood councils in El Alto, Bolivia and the politics of their rights claims previously, I am now a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Lausanne. I focus on the political, economic and social dimensions of lithium extraction at the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia by looking at practices of industrial labour in the region. My primary interests lie in community-driven social change, human-material relations in industrial work and alternatives to capitalist development.