Next Thursday, December 14 at 11:00 a.m. the ICLAC Meeting will be convened with Pablo Ampuero Ruiz and Cristóbal Bonelli on the topic: “Electromobility, Work and Energy: Interspersing Ions and Workers in the Megalopolis of Shenzhen”, a free to attend a meeting aimed at the general public.
Lithium is understood in Chile as a necessary resource for the economic development of the country and companies, and for the realization of a global energy transition that aims to decarbonize means of transportation. As Ampuero and Bonelli mention, it is associated with the promise of a better, more sustainable, and prosperous future. In China, however, electromobility presents particular ways of understanding work, time and mobility:
“Thinking about lithium from a Chinese perspective does not automatically imply associating it with energy transition, but rather trying to conceive the local concept of “New energy” (新能源) integrated into the building of an “ecological civilization” (生态文明)” says Ampuero.
The presentation aims to reflect on how these impacts thinking at a chemical level, within lithium-ion batteries, and at a productive level, outside the battery: “We seek to conceptualize work in the worlds of lithium, and from this lens reconsider the “climate coloniality” (Sultana 2022) inherent in universalist projects of economic and environmental sustainability.”
The meeting will be held in person and will take place in the Council Room of the Faculty of History, Geography, and Political Science of the Pontifical Catholic University Chile (see map). Registration here
Pablo Ampuero Ruiz has a Doctorate in Social Anthropology from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and the Martin Luther University of Halle Wittenberg (Germany) and is a postdoctoral researcher, part of the ERC Lithium Worlds project at the University of Amsterdam.
Cristóbal Bonelli is a Doctor in Social Anthropology from the University of Edinburgh, Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, and Principal Investigator of the ERC Lithium Worlds project (ERC grant no. 853133) https://worldsoflithiu.eu