Indigenous communities facing the exploitation of lithium in their territories: similar contexts, different responses

Abstract

The aimisto unde rstand the responses of two groups of indigenous communities that are a few kilometres apart, have similar cultural traditions and institutional contexts, withregard to lithium exploitation projects. The general argument states that the different frames –dependentor autonomist- that the communities build, trigger different demands -of recognition or redistribution- and generate processes that produce divergent responses. The study focuseson the communities of Salinas Grandes and Olarozbetween 2009 and 2016. The methodological strategy combines in-dep than alysis with ineach case and subsequent comparison of the cases. The empirical basis of this workis 50 in-depth interviews conducted between 2016 and 2018, which were complemented by fiel do bservations