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No. 3 (2024)

Extractivism and urbanization: inequalities and conflicts in the strategic coupling of the Salar de Olaroz

  • Alberto Valz Gris
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa3-2024oa18428
Submitted
settembre 6, 2024
Published
2024-09-20

Abstract

With reference to the growing literature on extended urbanization, this article explores the nexus between extractivism and urbanization. Starting from the Argentine case of the Sales de Jujuy lithium mine, it proposes a possible key to interpret the geographies of urban metabolism through the concept of strategic coupling, by which territories are inserted into global value chains. Delving into the forms of exclusion underlying this process, this article describes the extraction of land, labor, and water from the territories surrounding the Salar de Olaroz and it shows how strategic coupling does not only engender positive territorial outcomes, as argued by both the literature on global value chains and various actors on the ground. Instead, the trajectories described in this article place the uneven distribution of value and spatial conflicts squarely at the center of the geographies of extended urbanization.

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