GROUT

Governing ResOurce UrbanisaTion (GROUT)

GROUT was a Marie Sklodowska Curie fellowship that explored the expansion of (green) extractivism in a context of ‘planetary urbanisation’. The primary objective of this fellowship was to explore governance dynamics in resource extraction in the context of the energy transition. As the demand for vminerals essential to low-carbon infrastructure increases—known as green extractivism—pressure to extract resources is rising not only in Europe but many regions around the globe. While addressing the energy transition is crucial, we risk repeating past mistakes by exacerbating regional and global inequalities through green colonialism, resource dependency, violence, and countless environmental, social, and cultural impacts.

This fellowship demonstrates that green extractivism is not a new phenomenon. I traced the mechanisms that have locked countries like Australia into an extractivist, resource-dependent path ignoring environmental, social, cultural, and even economic impacts. To showcase the current impacts of the capital-driven transition we analysed nickel and lithium mining. We showed how this transition reinforces the colonial character of energy provision, causing land dispossession, resource depletion, and the creation or deepening of sacrifice zones.

We also explored local transformations, challenges, and the role of key actors, such as the ‘environmentally privileged,’ unions, environmental groups, and the state in the governance of green extractivism in peri-urban regions near Sydney, Australia. These areas are experiencing gentrification while facing a growing need to extract minerals and establish energy projects to supply urban areas.

Research team: Marta Conde, Isabelle Anguelovski, Vigya Sharma

Cognitive psychology to analyse green compromise

In the Illawarra, I also identified a puzzling dynamic: privileged residents from Sydney were moving to the Illawarra in search of greener lifestyles, ignoring the historical and ongoing pollution issues. This fellowship innovatively proposes the use of cultural and cognitive psychology to understand the ‘green compromise’ these citizens make, emphasizing the importance of understanding the behavior of the ‘environmentally privileged’—a key actor in the energy transition.

Multi-stakeholder analysis and action research in the Illawarra

Aiming to contribute to a more just energy transition I organised a workshop in Newcastle, Australia, where together with Darryl Best, an ex-miner, we brought together key change-makers from the Illawarra with the founders of the Hunter Jobs Alliance, an alliance between environmental groups and unions that has managed to attract government funding for jobs in the energy transition. The alliance between these two groups is not only necessary to promote electrification and avoid the green sacrifice of peri-urban areas but also to achieve a deeper transformation of society if we want to tackle climate change.

Understanding Green Extractivism with nickel

The paper co-authored paper “The coloniality of green extractivism: Unearthing decarbonisation by dispossession through the case of nickel” published in Political Geography exemplifies the paradox of fossil fuel burning to generate energy: this key mineral for rechargeable batteries is remarkably carbon intensive and polluting due to its smelting and refining final stages.

As we demonstrate, the large-scale deployment of solar and wind technologies will generate land enclosures and conflicts (for example has been predicted solar energy will require 600 times more land than coal). This will have more impact on rural areas, especially in the Global South where land is cheaper, and in peri-urban areas. Through cases from Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia and Guatemala we show how nickel extraction uses that same neo-colonial extractivist logic generating ecological destruction, dispossession, health impacts and murderous violence against environmental defenders.

Understanding the political economy of Green Extractivism

Through this fellowship Conde developed the concept of the ‘mineralstate’. Building on Karl’s (1997) petrostate theory, this paper extends the concept to include mineral-dependent countries. Using process tracing, it shows how these countries transform their institutions and regulations to support extractivism, often at the expense of economic, environmental, social, and cultural concerns. Mineralstates are driven by i) resource-led development aspirations; ii) corruption; and iii) the mineral complex—a political economy propelled by global demand, production networks, and mining industry alliances.

Through the analysis of Australia’s history I highglight three mechanisms that lock Australia – and other countries – into a path dependence trajectory with economic, environmental, social and cultural consequences.

Understanding response to Green Extractivism

In the paper published in Global Environmental change in 2023 Marta Conde, Mariana Walter, Lucrecia Wagner and Grettel Navas develop the concept of “Slow justice and other unexpected consequences of litigation in environmental conflicts”.

The researchers pose that environmental litigation, a very common strategy used by local groups in socio-environmental conflicts, face several unexpected consequences i) slow justice caused by companies delaying court proceedings by appealing every ruling, demobilizing social movements. So even if they win the court cases, they lose because companies ignore or delay complying with the sentence. ii) The courts’ languages and proceedings reduce complex impacts to simplified, scientifically verifiable and legally punishable damages invisibilising harms and victims. And iii) local groups lose control of the legal procedures and the resistance process itself with judges, lawyers and even local leaders taking key decisions about court jurisdiction, demands and narratives, ignoring those marginalised, with gender implications.

Workshop May 2024

In May 2024 we carried out the workshop ‘Energy, water, earth: Building alliances for just and sovereign transition in Catalonia’ was co-funded with funds secured funds from the Maria de Maetzu Excellence program of the ICTA-UAB.

The workshop looked to unite academia and social movements to think together of ways forward. The morning focused on sharing strategies and narratives, whilst the afternoon focused on thinking together of possible networks. Out of the workshop became clear the need to create a stronger alliance between social movements and academia.

We inaugurated the Movement & Academia Alliance!

The main objective of the group is to strengthen the relationship and mutual support between social movements and academia. On the one hand, grassroots social, environmental and political movements require scientific knowledge to interpret reality and denounce projects and narratives with an impact on the territory. On the other hand, academia needs to know the real needs and problems firsthand, as well as a roadmap to act on these social realities. The ultimate goal is to promote transformative political actions to advance towards post-capitalist scenarios and address the climate crisis.

👉 From social movements or territorial organizations a demand comes to us by filling out this form

👉 We activate a small network of researchers and try to respond to the demand. Are you a researcher and want to collaborate?

🤝 There are different support models: Direct contact to obtain information, research a topic, Talk, Final Master’s Thesis – TFM (research project of a master’s student, this is easier to achieve than a researcher who is usually busier), Service Learning – ApS (educational proposal where students are trained through participation in a project aimed at solving a real need in a community), etc.

👉 We also want to later create a documentary fund of laws, models of allegations, etc.

Join us on Telegram!

Co-creation with local movements

We collaborated with the local group ‘Salvemos la Montaña de Caceres’ who has for seven years opposed the construction of a lithium mine less than 1.5km from their UNESCO Heritage site city, representing a clear case of planetary urbanisation.

We co-created a factsheet with details of the project to inform decision making of ‘Strategic projects’ ahead of a meeting that will take place by the Strategic Committee in the European commission in February 2025. This is part of a campaign coordinated by EEB and FoEE where other factsheets of similar projects are being created and presented.

More details about the project and other lithium mines can be found in this publication in Spanish in El Salto titled “Protests against lithium extraction: from Caceres to the rest of Europe”.