Felix Dorn, University of Vienna 21 April 2023 Activity: CEDLA Lecture & Opening of the Photo Exhibition ABOUT THE LECTURE: The global transition to a ‘green’ energy system is increases the demand and extraction of certain ‘critical’ resources, including lithium. This growing demand for raw materials has sparked a new debate on the global interdependencies and unevenness of the emergent energy transition. In this lecture, Felix Dorn discusses this strand of literature, and argues that the global interconnections of the green energy transition influence the transition imaginaries, ideas, goals, and decisions of different localities of extraction. Highlighting actors, institutions, conflicts, narratives and material dimensions, the political economy of lithium mining and energy transition in Argentina reveals the reproduction of an emerging new ‘green’ consensus based on techno-optimism, ecological modernization and green growth. ABOUT THE PHOTO EXHIBITION: Gold rush in the 'lithium triangle' The light metal lithium, an important element for Li-Ion batteries, is now considered a strategic resource for the 21st century. The electrification of transport is expected to make a decisive contribution to reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Lithium plays a key role in this. While only 2-3g of lithium are used in a smartphone battery, the production of an electric vehicle requires an average of 8-40kg, about ten thousand times that amount. The world's largest (and most profitable) lithium deposits are found in South America's so-called ‘lithium triangle’, which stretches from the Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia) to the Salar de Atacama (Chile) and a series of smaller salt flats in northwest Argentina. In recent years, the boom around the ‘white gold’ lithium has given rise to a large number of new mining projects. With an average of 38-200mm of rainfall per year, this region (Puna-Atacama-Altiplano) is one of the driest areas on earth. Characterised by volcanic rocks, salt deserts, steppe and sand dunes, this high desert has been inhabited for centuries by indigenous communities, especially Atacameños, Kolla, Lickanantay and Quechua. Historically marginalised in the global and respective national context, due to the sharp increase in lithium extraction many communities suddenly find themselves at the centre of global economic processes. The local population is increasingly polarised: On the one hand, lithium mining revitalises hopes for wage labour and economic development; on the other hand, the large-scale concessioning of indigenous territories results in a restriction of traditional activities and great concern for local water resources. As a result, roadblocks and local protests take place in some cases. The case of lithium exemplifies that new technologies always reflect the social relations they emerge from and are often based on exclusive access to (strategic) resources, reproducing and creating socio-ecological inequalities. In this photo project, I use the example of lithium to explore how dominant narratives about the energy transition make a region align itself with the export of a single raw material and how this influences the self-perception of the inhabitants. The social construction of the ‘lithium triangle’ thereby contrasts the diverging local ideas of development and modernity. At the same time, far-reaching changes, adaptations, and hybrids also take place in the villages and indigenous communities.

17 May 2023, 16.00 - 17.30 Activity: Centcoop, ResiduaLab, Navi and CEDLA Event May 17 marks World Recycling Day, officially declared by UNESCO, with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of recycling as a tool for proper waste management and to mitigate climate change. For this reason, we decided to meet that day and present a series of research results that have been produced in the dialogue and experience of anthropologists in Brazil and the Netherlands, and also present the trajectory of the social movement of collectors in Brazil, through the speech of Aline Souza, President Director of Centcoopdf, the biggest reference in South America for the Work Cooperatives of Collectors of Recyclable Materials. PROGRAM Cristhian Caje and Barbara Arisi (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) Circular economy: garbage/solid waste anthropologies and innovative experiences between Latin America and the Netherlands. Aline Souza (Centcoopdf) The social movements of waste pickers in Brazil. Maria Raquel Passos Lima (Laboratory of Social Studies of Waste - ResiduaLab /UERJ.) "Anthropology of waste: theoretical, ethnographical and political perspectives from the south". Carmen Rial (UFSC, Brazil) Cornelia Eckert (UFRGS, Brazil) Report of an experience in the Netherlands, an ethnographic look at the circular economy.

Hugo Romero, Universidad de Chile 27 June 2023 Activity: Lecture co-organized with Worlds of Lithium (AISSR & ERC) On April 21, 2023, the President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, announced the long expected National Lithium Policy. The reactions of local, national and global social actors have been mostly in opposition to its content, in particular to the proposal of a public-private institution that takes charge of lithium exploitation, ecological protection and the establishment of agreements with local communities. In this lecture, Dr. Hugo Romero presents a critical analysis of Chile’s new lithium policy, based on the physical geographic knowledge and the socio-ecological and territorial power relations that exist in the salt flats of the Atacama Desert. The main objective of the new policy is to recover Chile’s first place in world production, to serve the financial needs of the state. Internationally, the proposal has been criticized, accusing it of “nationalization”, and business organizations consider the participation of the subsidiary state in mining activity unnecessary. While academic communities are concerned about the lack of scientific knowledge to make decisions, the Council of Atacameño Peoples has indicated that they were not considered in the elaboration of a policy that does not protect their territorial integrity. Watch here the announcement of the long expected National Lithium Policy

It's time to rethink our governance and decision-making processes Harvard Professor Diane E. Davis DATE: 19 October 2023 Activity: AISSR Lecture organized in cooperation with CEDLA Join us for our second and upcoming AISSR Lecture, featuring Diane E. Davis - Professor of Urban Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design - as she delves into the vital link between natural systems and urban management. Breaking free from outdated notions of sovereignty, Prof. Davis challenges the status quo, paving the way for effective 21st-century responses to ecological challenges. We're in the Anthropocene, where human influence on the planet is undeniable. It's time to adapt our governance. ✴ How do we navigate urban complexities in a borderless ecological context? ✴ How can we prioritize ecological well-being alongside human needs? The lecture will be followed by a conversation between Diane E. Davis and John Grin, Professor of public policy and governance at the AISSR. Don't miss this opportunity to explore the future of governance in an ever-changing world.

SPEAKER: Natalia Milanesio, University of Houston DATE: 8 March 2024 ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE How did the restoration of democracy in 1983, after years of repression and censorship, transform sexuality and representations and ideas about sexuality? This talk answers this question by examining the unparalleled sexualization of Argentine culture and society after the fall of the last military dictatorship that contemporaries called the destape. Omnipresent, sex was not only about fantasies and indulgence, but was also imbued with a myriad of social, political, and cultural positive meanings—including citizenship, social progress, national development, and modernity. These meanings made sexual culture into a powerful metaphor for democracy and the reconstruction of Argentine society.

SPEAKER: Guadalupe García Prado, Observatorio de Industrias Extractivas (OIE) DISCUSSANT: Dr. Karolien van Teijlingen (Radboud University) CHAIR: Hannah Porada (CEDLA) DATE: Monday, November 20, 2023 TIME: 15.30 - 17.00, followed by drinks and snacks ACTIVITY: DIÁLOGOS CON LA SOCIEDAD CIVIL (NALACS) ORGANIZATION: CEDLA and NALACS in collaboration with OIE VENUE: CEDLA Room 2.02 (2nd floor) Guadalupe García Prado is an anthropologist and the director of the Extractive Industries Observatory in Guatemala (Observatorio de Industrias Extractivas). From a multidisciplinary approach, she has conducted research to support local communities in their demands against the state and mining corporations. Guadalupe's main concerns are the relationships between global investment, local communities, and the environment. With the desire to contribute to the democratization of information and knowledge, she strives to address extractivism with an ethical-political commitment rooted in permanent reflection and learning. ​ Dr. Karolien van Teijlingen is a critical geographer and engaged scholar based in The Netherlands and Ecuador. She currently works as an assistant professor at the Anthropology and Development Studies department of Radboud University Nijmegen. Karolien’s research, teaching and activism focuses on the conflicts and dilemmas related to extractivist development models, climate change and the energy transition, and questions of socio-ecological justice. Next to her teaching, she carries out a research project on the geographies of Net-Zero and climate justice in the Amazon region. Her PhD research focussed on territorial transformation and conflicts related to the expansion of large-scale mineral mining in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Karolien is also part of various collectives, including the Critical Geography Collective of Ecuador. ​ Hannah Porada is a PhD researcher based at CEDLA at the University of Amsterdam. In her ongoing research she investigates the cases of gas extraction in The Netherlands and the mining of construction materials in Guatemala from a political ecology perspective. Her research interests relate to issues of extractivism, environmental and social justice struggles, water governance and justice, and social movement alliance building. ​ The theme revolves around energy transition, nickel extraction and territorial injustices in Guatemala. Guadalupe García Prado (Director of the Extractive Industries Observatory in Guatemala) and Karolien van Teijlingen (Assistant Professor at Radboud University) will discuss the need and obstacles for a just energy transition amid the failure and implied injustices of our current energy models.They will also reflect on the challenges of transitioning to non-fossil fuel energy sources as it may lead to increased mineral extraction and exacerbate social and environmental issues on the ground. As a case study, Guadalupe García Prado will focus on nickel extraction in Guatemala. Embedding the case of Guatemala in the wider global and historical context, she will flesh out how the push for ‘clean energy technologies’ drives the extraction of critical and strategic minerals, impacting local communities through biodiversity loss, threats to livelihoods, water source depletion, health problems, and extraction-related violence.

Eén familie, drie generaties en honderd jaar strijd in Colombia 10/5/22, 15.30h Venue: CEDLA, Roetersstraat 33 | 1018 WB Amsterdam - 2nd Floor Organizator: CEDLA Event Robert-Jan Friele De Pizarro’s is een fascinerende familiekroniek die de dramatische geschiedenis van een heel land vertelt. Door de ogen van drie generaties en via tientallen levendige verhalen ontrolt een eeuw Colombia zich op meeslepende wijze. Nergens komt de Colombiaanse geschiedenis zo samen als in de familie Pizarro. De vader is de opperbevelhebber van het leger en gelooft in de instituties. Zijn zoons en dochter worden guerrillero’s en prediken de revolutie. Tegen de achtergrond van de Koude Oorlog en de opkomst van de cocaïnehandel streven de Pizarro’s, elk op een eigen manier, naar een rechtvaardiger Colombia. Veredelde staatsgrepen in Bogotá, clandestiene trainingskampen op Cuba, collegebanken in Moskou: ze beleven het allemaal. Hun strijd kost twee van hen het leven en de revolutionaire droom kan geen einde maken aan de schrijnende ongelijkheid en het geweld. Eén ding blijft van generatie op generatie gelijk: het gevecht van de Pizarro’s voor een betere toekomst van hun land.

24/6/22, 15.30h Venue: CEDLA, Roetersstraat 33 | 1018 WB Amsterdam - 2nd Floor ORGANIZADORES: Milieudefensie, IUCN Nederlands Comité, NALACS & CEDLA YUVELIS NATALIA MORALES Activista colombiana - Comité AguaWil - Colombia Libre de Fracking - Afrowilches CAROLINA VALLADARES Socióloga ecuatoriana e Investigadora de doctorado en el CEDLA

22/4/22, 15.30h Venue: CEDLA, Roetersstraat 33 | 1018 WB Amsterdam - 2nd Floor Organiser: CEDLA Lecture Paolo Boccagni, University of Trento How does the relation between migrants and (so- called) non-migrants evolve over time? In a historical period of unprecedented infrastructures for migrants' transnational connections, the risk exists to overstate migrants' engagement in their communities of origin, and neglect the gaps emerging in space and time between movers and stayers. As migrants realize upon return, the ‘normality’ of life in their hometowns is not fundamentally questioned by migration, unless after especially critical events. The ordinary ways to imagine, perceive and use ‘remittance houses’ are most revealing of these modes of differentiation and dissimilation. By revisiting my cumulative fieldwork between Ecuador and Europe, I argue for a less exceptionalistic understanding of migration, inspired by the changing views and practices of home among my participants. Across migrants’ communities of origin, remittances keep making a difference, when available. Migrant houses keep standing out in the surrounding built environment. However, in most other respects, everyday life ‘back home’ is more a matter of business-as-usual than most migration scholars may admit. Many keep dwelling there, some others here, but very few in the alluring, ambiguous, and ultimately ephemeral space of the here-and-there.

11/02/22, 15.30h Venue: CEDLA, Roetersstraat 33 | 1018 WB Amsterdam - 2nd Floor Organizador: CEDLA Lecture Poniente: Astrid Ulloa, Universidad Nacional (Colombia) El cambio climático global y los posteriores procesos de mitigación y adaptación son temas que trascienden los contextos locales y requieren la interacción de diferentes conocimientos, ideas y prácticas. Sin embargo, las acciones globales contra el CC han estado sustentadas por un solo tipo de conocimiento. Si bien se han planteado propuestas para la articulación de diversos conocimientos, los intentos de acuerdos interculturales e interdisciplinarios continúan enfrentando problemas de comparación con la ciencia especializada, en términos de indicadores, escalas, formas de sistematización y variables a considerar, especialmente en los procesos de predicción. En este contexto, Prof. Astrid Ulloa argumenta que los conocimientos indígenas, dadas sus ontologías, epistemologías y relaciones culturales de acuerdo con el género, la edad, la especialización y la localización, permiten una comprensión compleja del CC. Son conocimientos que confrontan las políticas global-nacionales para visibilizar los territorios como seres vivos, y los no humanos como seres políticos, y proponer alternativas contextualizadas de acuerdo con procesos históricos y políticos para repensar conceptos, estrategias y políticas frente al cambio climático.

12 September 2021, 15:30-17:00 Venue: CEDLA, Roetersstraat 33 | 1018 WB Amsterdam - 2nd Floor CEDLA Lecture Speaker: Jelke Boesten, King’s College London In 2016, the case known as ‘Sepur Zarco’ saw two military officers convicted for crimes against humanity and sexual and domestic slavery in Guatemala. Following the analysis of Jo-Marie Burt (2019), the case had transformative effects on the victim-survivors as well as on the idea of gender justice more broadly. Considering this remarkable trial and its effects, in this lecture Jelke Boesten asks if criminal justice for conflict related sexual violence can bring about transformative gender justice in Latin America by unpacking ongoing trials in Peru. There, during the counterinsurgency against Shining Path (1980-2000) the military used sexual violence just as systematically as in Guatemala in the 1980s. However, impunity persists. The paper will reflect on the ongoing court case against thirteen ex-military in Peru, known as ‘Manta y Vilca’, to examine whether these difficult processes contribute to what we might call ‘transformative gender justice’ in Latin America.

Financialisation - Displacement - Gentrification SPEAKER: Dr. Michael Janoschka, Senior Lecturer at Universität Leipzig DISCUSSANT: Dr. Femke van Noorloos from Utrecht University DATE: 11 June, 2021 ACTIVITY: CEDLA LECTURE ​ In his lecture Michael Janoschka will discuss how Latin American cities have increasingly been defined by the financialisation of urban development, the gentrification of urban areas and the displacement of vulnerable populations. He will unpack the dominant urban theories and the current debate on city development in order to engage critically with spatial discourses and knowledge production. He proposes to use a de-colonial perspective to develop a more nuanced approach and to provide alternative readings of urban transformation policies and processes in Latin American cities.

Dr. Mónica Moreno Figueroa, University of Cambridge and Prof. Peter Wade, University of Manchester This lecture took place on 9 April 2021 as part of the CEDLA Lecture Series. There has been an incipient turn to antiracism in Latin America. In our research project ‘Latin American Anti-racism in a 'Post-Racial' Age’ (LAPORA) we are looking at different styles of antiracist activity in four countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. One of our key findings is the variation in how different organisations understand and use the language of racism and antiracism to define or organise their activities. There are different grammars of antiracism, some explicit some alternative. What could the antiracist effects of these ‘alternative grammars’ of struggle be? Explicit naming of racism per se is not necessarily a sign of advancing antiracist work, however strategic language and awareness of structural racism have distinct advantages for antiracist practice.

Prof. dr. Rutgerd Boelens, Wageningen University & CEDLA - University of Amsterdam This lecture took place on 19 March 2021 as part of the CEDLA Lecture Series. River systems are fundamental for social and natural well-being. Around the world, however, mega-damming, pollution and depletion are putting riverine complexes under great stress. Since ages, engineering of ideal societies by domesticating ‘wild water’ followed utopian imaginaries to control humans and nature at once, while omitting alternative understandings and side-lining local co-governance practices. In Europe, this has a long tradition: “God created the world but the Dutch created the Netherlands”. Spain’s century-old Política Hidráulica envisioned “recreating nature and humans, at once”. Both countries exported their technocratic paradigms to Latin America, but the pendulum may now swing back. Ecuador engrained ‘Rights of Nature’ constitutionally. In Colombia, rivers became subjects, not objects, of moral and legal rights. Increasingly, socio-nature commons fight for revitalizing rivers. European grassroots now seek to creatively translate these notions in their struggles, and partners in South and North join forces, building bottom-up, cross-cultural knowledge. Science and policies, however, lack the tools to engage with these new water justice movements. Through two new international Wageningen / CEDLA-UvA programs, we will study local and transnational “river commoning” languages, values, practices, and strategies. We will examine river complexes from four connected ontologies: River-as-ecosociety; River-as-territory; River-as-subject; and River-as-movement. ​

Mariana Llanos, GIGA Institute for Latin American Studies, Hamburg This lecture took place on 26 February 2021 as part of the CEDLA Lecture Series In this lecture Dr. Mariana Llanos takes a longitudinal view on presidential-term-limit reforms in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa since the third wave of democratization. Many countries in the two regions (re-)introduced term limits as a democratic safeguard against personal rule and power abuses. Since then, term limits have been contested by a plethora of reform attempts. Such reforms are commonly seen as a risk to democracy. Her theoretical and empirical research (together with Charlotte Heyl ) shows that the stability of term-limit rules is more prevalent than expected, but that this stability sometimes masks institutional ineffectiveness in authoritarian regimes. Rule instability induced by frequent reforms can be part of a piecemeal path towards autocratization, but it can also reflect an open-ended tug of war between authoritarian tendencies and democratic resistance. ​

Tatiana Acevedo Guerrero, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education ​ Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, the Barranquilla World Bank Project aimed to expand water supply to the southwestern sector of the city, populated mainly by low-income communities. Anticipating the duration of the works, the project included a short-term solution: it would install fifty public standpipes during the first months of implementation. This talk tells the story of the WB project and the fifty public standpipes - which were never built. Its purpose is to analyse how water/power distributions have been reworked and consolidated, highlighting tensions triggered by the project at the national and local level. It evidences the messiness of electoral politics and the complexity of political parties (their competing interests, and the fact that these changed over time). This is of interest as it focuses on electoral politics, a subject rarely touched by the political ecology literature, where water policies’ implementation is frequently portrayed as a process of imposition of a set of measures by an essentially uniform group of political/economic elites. Tatiana Acevedo Guerrero argues that, throughout the project, different and heterogenous governments, regulatory agencies, political parties, electoral movements, unions, and business groups, engaged in confrontations and negotiations about different imaginations of the city.