Corporeal-territorial sacrifice zones in the energy transition:

the intensification of mineral extraction in Northwestern Argentina

Abstract

This article examines how the energy transition, conceived as a project of capitalist rearticulation, entails the intensification of mineral extraction and the deepening of socio-environmental violence that affects bodies and territories, thereby producing new sacrifice zones. Based on a case study of lithium extraction projects in Northwestern Argentina, it argues that such initiatives do not address local or national needs but are instead embedded in a global dynamic of capitalist accumulation. Under the discourse of transition, these practices inflict violence and dispossession upon the communities inhabiting these territories. Considering this context, the article poses
a central question: whom does an energy transition serve and benefit when, in being projected toward the future, it demands the sacrifice of lives and territories in the present?

KEYWORDS:
Sacrifice zones. Energy transition. Extractivism. Lithium. Resistances.