Proposing a transition from the contact zone
Unveiling opportunities for negotiation in the context of lithium extractivism in the Puna de Atacama
A. Ferrero (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
E.L. Longhin – Mentor (TU Delft - Urban Design)
Raquel H. Silva – Mentor (TU Delft - Urban Design)
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Abstract
The Puna de Atacama, home to vast salt flats and fragile highland ecosystems, is now being transformed by the extraction of lithium. This mineral is central to the green transition and global decarbonisation efforts, rendering the region a geophysical asset and a site of ontological dispute. As planetary urbanisation extends its operational landscapes into remote ecologies (Brenner & Katsikis, 2020), ancestral territories become increasingly entangled in extractive logics that reframe land, water and life through the imperatives of energy storage and global market demands.
This research project explores the potential for negotiations between different ontologies. Grounded in political ecology and decolonial thought, it explores how power relations are formed and how they influence the politics of transition, knowledge hierarchies, and the rationales underlying territorial governance. Through situated case studies in the Olaroz-Cauchari and Salinas Grandes–Laguna de Guayatayoc watersheds, the investigation unfolds along three interconnected lines of inquiry: the spatial organisation of extractivist and ancestral territorialities; governance structures and negotiations between divergent ontologies; and epistemic frameworks through which territory is interpreted, represented, and acted upon.
Ultimately, this thesis does not merely critique existing paradigms; it seeks to open up the possibility of alternative territorial configurations and imaginative approaches that recognise distributed agency, ontological plurality, and the potential for a fairer, more reciprocal and context-sensitive way of inhabiting these fragile, contested landscapes.