Injustice Along the "green" Energy Supply Chain, A Critical Analysis of the Transition Industry

Injustice Along the “green” Energy Supply Chain: A Critical Analysis of the Transition Industry The energy transition in the Western world has profound impacts on other regions, as it demands resources and goods to fuel its shift towards cleaner emissions. This process often leaves behind significant fallout, including environmental degradation and socio-ecological harm, which are tied to the global supply chains sustaining this transition. This research aims to analyze the energy transition industry and to understand whether - and to what extent - it can be considered just and sustainable. The study begins with an investigation of the global supply chains of lithium that sustain the energy transition and then focuses on a specific case study, the Atacama Salt Flat (Chile). Lithium was chosen because, both symbolically and materially, it represents one of the most important critical raw materials for the development of the energy transition. It is increasingly central to global markets and electrification processes. This thesis builds on theoretical debates at the intersection of environmental justice and political ecology, engaging with concepts such as just transition, energy justice, and supply chain justice to analyze the asymmetries of the green economy. By integrating the framework of social metabolism with a conflict-oriented political ecology perspective, the research develops a critical, multi-scalar lens to examine the socio-ecological impacts of global supply chains. This approach is further grounded in the analysis of extractivist contexts like the Atacama Salt Flat, exploring how territorial narratives and power relations shape the transition industry. Structured as a compilation of research articles, this thesis engages with current theoretical debates on the transition industry within the frameworks of political ecology and critical geography. The first article highlights the lack of attention to supply chains in debates on environmental justice and energy transitions, drawing on the concept of supply chain justice to establish links between seemingly isolated conflicts along different phases of the supply chain through the lens of political ecology. The notion of supply chain struggle was introduced as an analytical tool to trace, connect, and interpret forms of resistance that relate to a common extractive infrastructure. In the second article the idea of supply chain metabolism was introduced as a framework to use socio-metabolic analysis to study supply chains. Furthermore, from an empirical perspective it was proposed to understand supply chain metabolism through an environmental conflict and political ecology lens, this approach contributes to socio-metabolic analysis proposing a qualitative and conflict based perspective to metabolic analysis. While metabolic analysis primarily focuses on the flow of energy and materials, we use data from the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) to trace the dynamics of resistance and conflict along the supply chain, uncovering the socio-environmental injustices embedded within it. The third article that composes this thesis focuses on a specific spot of the supply chain, the extractive site, first phase of the lithium supply chain. The work is based on extensive fieldwork with Lickanantay communities on the extractivist dynamics of the Atacama Salt Flat. The study proposes an analysis of extractivist contexts and processes through the idea of fractures - ecological, cultural, and political disruptions. The final article of this thesis went on working on extractivist contexts introducing the concept of extractivist geonarrative as a tool to examine the narrative and spatial transformations of socio-ecological relations in territories shaped by extractivist logics. This research employed a wide range of methodologies that intertwined in the attempt to operationalize a multi-scalar and multi-sited analysis of the lithium supply chain. The result is a multi-dimensional investigation that mobilizes “follow the thing”, participant observation, qualitative interviews, and field diaries. Methodologically, the empirical analyses draw on a diverse array of critical mapping approaches. This process-oriented, interdisciplinary and experimental methodology allowed a flexible response to the research questions and adapted to context-specific needs throughout the investigation. In short, engaging with a body of literature rooted in political ecology and the environmental humanities, and through a multi-scalar and multi-sited approach, this thesis systematizes some of the impacts and consequences of the lithium supply chain, offering a cross-cutting analysis of global supply chains and of the asymmetric effects of the transition industry, while also operationalizing this analysis by providing theoretical and methodological insights for further investigation.