Lithium Extraction: Research Directions and Needs in Latin America
Date: 22 May 2025.
Info: Graduate Student Pre-Conference Workshop at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) 2025
Organized by:
Javiera Barandiarán
UC Santa Barbara | Associate Professor of Global Studies
Nushy Golriz
UC Los Angeles | Geography Ph.D. Candidate
This workshop will feature an interdisciplinary discussion on lithium extraction and climate justice in Latin America. Participants will discuss how research can inform debates about lithium mining at different scales, support organizing efforts and communities facing mining projects, and how to contribute to knowledge on climate justice, just transitions, restorative environmental work, degrowth, and other frameworks for reconfiguring socio-ecological relations.
For more information please contact
Nushy Golriz at mgolriz@ucla.edu.
Sponsors: Organized by UCSB’s Center for Restorative Environmental Work, a CLAIR lab, with support from the US National Science Foundation and LASA - Environment Section.
Lithium Extraction: Research Directions and Needs in Latin America
Date: 22 May 2025.
Info: Graduate Student Pre-Conference Workshop at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) 2025
AGENDA
9am-10:30AM - Virtual Graduate Student Workshop
12–5PM - Researchers’ Round Table at San Francisco Marriott Marquis
6PM - Dinner for participants
ORGANIZERS
Javiera Barandiarán | UC Santa Barbara | Associate Professor of Global Studies
Nushy Golriz | UC Los Angeles | Geography Ph.D Candidate
Workshop Paper Presenters
Barbara Galindo | UC Riverside | Postdoctoral Researcher of Media and Cultural Studies
Pere Nogues | City University of New York | Graduate Student of Anthropology
Nathanial Dolton-Thornton | UC Berkeley | Graduate Student of the Energy and Resources Group
Rafael Hernández Westpfahl | Heidelberg University | Graduate Student of the Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies
Thiago Barbosa | Leipzig University | Postdoctoral Researcher of Anthropology
Hernan L. Bianchi Benguria | University of Toronto | Graduate Student of Geography and Planning
Chiara Braucher | Università di Trento | Graduate Student of Economics and Management
Jennifer Tamara Mandujano Isunza | Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México | Master’s Student of International Relations Studies
Gabriela Cabañas | Fundacion Tanti | Graduate Student of Anthropology
Ramon Balcazar | Autonomous Metropolitan University of Mexico | Graduate Student of Rural Development
Manuel Olivera | Universidad Mayor de San Andrés | Graduate Student of Economic Development
Discussants
James J. Blair | Associate Professor of Geography and Anthropology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Craig Johnson | University of Guelph | Professor of Political Science
Sally Babidge | University of Queensland | Associate Professor at the School of Social Science
Thea Riofranco | Providence College | Associate Professor of Political Science
Fernando Leiva | UC Santa Cruz | Professor of Political Economy
Manuel Prieto | Universidad de Tarapaca | Professor of Geography
Andrea Marston | Rutgers University | Assistant Professor of Geography
Julio Postigo | Indiana University Bloomington | Professor of Geography
Gabrielle Hecht | Stanford University | Professor of History and Anthropology
Bettina Schorr | Freie Universitet | Professor of Geography and Political Science
Sibyl Diver | SIRGE Coalition & Stanford University | Co-director of the Environmental Justice Program
Special Guest
Yblin Roman | SIRGE Coalition
BOOK LAUNCH!
Date: 15 May 2025, 2:00pm - 3:00pm.
Location: Info coming soon...
PHOTOBOOK LAUNCH!
Date: 23 April 2025, 6:00pm - 7:00pm.
Location: RESTRICTED GOODS, 506 E Haley St, Santa Barbara.
Mingas+Solidarity
$38 | £35 | €35
ISBN: 979-8-218-34356-9
Hardcover, 9 x 9 inches, 100 pages.
Based on a shared documentary project that began in 2011, this book presents the work of photographer Tristan Partridge in collaboration with the Ancestral Community of San Isidro, an Indigenous community in highland Ecuador.
Este libro presenta un proyecto documental colaborativo iniciado en 2011 entre el fotógrafo Tristan Partridge y la Comunidad Ancestral de San Isidro, una comunidad indígena de la Región Sierra del Ecuador.
Photography / Fotografía: Tristan Partridge
Text / Textos: Myriam Allauca, Porfirio Allauca
Afterword / Epílogo: Alberto Acosta
Book design: Gianni Frinzi
A joint publication by Pazmaen Press and T&G Publishing.
PAST EVENTS
CREW partner event -- NAHR.it
Date: 19 April 2025, 11:00am.
Location: details available via nahr.it
Info: "We are pleased to announce and welcome Ruh Leng @thisinvisibleembrace to our Spring California Residency program! Please also save the date for Ruh's final presentation on April 19th, at 11am, in Santa Ynez (details will follow).
Ruh Leng is a poet, artist, and art director creating spaces for deeper seeing, bridging the visible and invisible through poetry, storytelling, and immersive experience.
Mineral Memory: Between Ash & Circuit, Witnessing Minerals in Transformation: An interactive storytelling experience weaving hand-drawn illustrations, poetic reflections, and visual research to reveal minerals as unseen catalysts and memory keepers—bridging their role in regenerative fire-enriched soils and the hidden scaffolding of technology (graphics by @a.n.i.m.o.l).
Date: 6 March 2025, 5:50pm - 8:00pm.
Location: The SPACE, Casa de la Guerra, 15 E De La Guerra Plaza, Santa Barbara.
The second of our CELEBRATING RESTORATIVE RELATIONS events.
A community-building gathering at The SPACE:
Su'nan Protection, Art & Cultural Education
(Su'nan means, "to continue" in the Šmuwič Chumash dialect, one of several Chumash languages).
Date: 6 March 2025, 11:00am - 12:30pm.
Location: HSSB 6020, UC Santa Barbara campus.
The first of our CELEBRATING RESTORATIVE RELATIONS events.
A roundtable conversation within the campus-connected community.
Date: 19 January 2025, 10:00am-11:15am
Location: online via NAHR.it
Nature Art & Habitat Residency
MINERALS: Scaffolders that Matter
"Our first 2025 talk about minerals, from a justice and equity perspective, led by CREW co-founders J. Barandiaran and T. Partridge.
Barandiaran will share from her forthcoming book, Living Minerals."
Application Deadline: 21 December 2024
Information: https://nahr.it/Apply-Iscrizione
Minerals are the silent architects of our world, crafting landscapes and influencing lives in ways often unseen. From the life-sustaining mineral salts within our bodies to the precious gems symbolizing wealth and power, and the rare earth metals which govern computer processing power, minerals are at the heart of numerous ecological, cultural, and technological processes. The meaning of the word “mineral” has evolved with our cultures and knowledge systems and can be used as a scientific term or as an adjective to describe waters, oils and even landscapes. In science minerals are defined as “naturally occurring inorganic elements or compounds having an orderly internal structure and characteristic chemical composition, crystal form, and physical properties” (as defined on the US Geological Survey), and studied through mineralogy and crystallography. The rate at which we continue to discover minerals today is exponential. While minerals themselves are static, the science behind them is not!
With this call, we seek proposals that uncover the stories, structures, and transformations of minerals, whether through the lens of environmental science, anthropology, art, or political ecology. We ask that fellows focus on the locality, exploring the topic within the Valleys, before incorporating global perspectives. Minerals can be found in the foods we eat, the water we drink, and the technologies we rely upon. They also challenge our perceptions of life and non-life, inviting us to reconsider the boundaries that define existence itself. Located in the heart of Val Taleggio, with its mineral-rich soils and ancient rock formations, this residency is an opportunity to engage with the mineral world not as mere spectators but as cohabitants, understanding the deep entanglements that minerals share with all forms of life.
NAHR’s multidisciplinary laboratory propels innovative and creative thinking. Annually, research is dedicated toward a specific natural element to examine the resiliency of the ecological systems specifically in the Taleggio Valley and Santa Ynez. NAHR is pleased to launch the 2025 residency, entitled Minerals: Scaffolders that Matter. This theme will explore the material that also constitutes the foundations of both valleys and can be seen expressed in many ways in the natural and built environment. Revealing connections between the natural and artificial, minerals are both a repository of the geological past as well as a material that shapes our future.
Date: 8 December 2024, 10:00am - 4:00pm
Location: 3626 W Jefferson Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90016
Information: here
Plant Sale presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) and Maydan Market
LAND is pleased to host a special holiday Plant Sale for our third year in a row, in partnership with our new neighbors at Maydan Market! Stop by to support local artists this holiday season and peruse a selection of rare succulents, house plants, ceramics, herbal tonics, homemade treats, and much more. Organized by artist Alika Cooper, Plant Sale brings together Los Angeles-based artists, gardeners, and conservationists for twice annual gatherings. Alika Cooper is a Los Angeles based artist and UCLA-certified horticulturist. Outside of the studio, Cooper oversees the maintenance of both public and residential specialty gardens
Date: 15 November 2024, 3:00pm-4:30pm
Location: Annenberg Room SSMS 4315.
Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Seafloor.
Lisa Han will be on campus to present a talk about her recently published book "Deepwater Alchemy: Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Seafloor."
Lisa Han is assistant professor of Media Studies at Pitzer College and an alum of the FAMST PhD program. This will be the first alumni spotlight in the FAMST 2024-25 colloquium series, co-sponsored by the UCSB Center for Literature and the Environment. Light refreshments will be served.
This event is part of the UCSB FILM & MEDIA STUDIES COLLOQUIUM SERIES.
Date: 13 November 2024, 11:00am.
Location: HSSB 2001A.
When is a Flood Not a Flood, but a Lake Returning? Water, Oil and Environmental Justice in Colonial California.
Please join the Departments of Anthropology, Feminist Studies, and Health, Justice & Community for this event -- a talk by Vivian Underhill, who is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Engineering, Design, & Society at Colorado School of Mines. Underhill’s scholarship bridges feminist and critical race science studies, anthropology, and groundwater hydrology toward community-engaged research on oil, water, and the environmental justice issues surrounding their extraction. She holds a Ph.D. in Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Date: 3 November 2024, 12:00pm-4:00pm
Location: Santa Barbara Public Library.
CREW tabling at the Michael Towbes Library Plaza Opening Community Arts Festival.
The Michael Towbes Library Plaza Opening Community Arts Festival will begin with a ribbon-cutting before performances from CAMA, Flamenco Santa Barbara, the Symphony, Folklorico, and more! All of Anapamu Street will be closed for tabling from nonprofits across the community with activities for all ages, food trucks, Library tours, Friends of the Library Booksale, and film screenings in the Faulkner Gallery. "Santa Barbara County is blessed with a diversity of vital nonprofit organizations dedicated to improving the health, well-being, growth, civic leadership and compassion of our community."
CREW will share and discuss our work on oil infrastructure decommissioning across the Santa Barbara region.
Date: 18 October 2024, 12:00pm-1:30pm
Location: via Zoom.
Climate Catastrophe and the War Machine.
The Climate Justice Working Group will convene our first meeting on Friday, October 18th from 12:00-1:30pm PST via zoom to begin an ongoing discussion of this year's theme: Climate Catastrophe and the War Machine.
The meeting is open to UCSB graduate students, faculty, postdocs, and staff whose research, teaching, and/or practice-based interests align with humanistic and critical approaches to climate justice. We will be discussing two selected readings and related questions of critical pedagogy.
During the meeting on Oct 18, we will discuss three short readings: the introduction of Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism by Jacob Darwin Hamblin; the short essay "Nakba in the Age of Catastrophe" by Sherene Seikaly; and the brief report "Ceasefire now, ceasefire forever: No climate justice without Palestinian freedom and self‑determination" by the Climate & Community Institute.
Date: 20 September 2024, 10:00am-12:00pm
Location: le Centre de sociologie des organisations (CSO)
Sciences Po, Paris.
Javiera Barandiaran and Tristan Partridge present their forthcoming edited volume, Demanding a Radical Constitution: Environmentalism, Resilience, and Participation in Chile’s 2022 Reform Efforts:
This book documents the critical thinking and political actions that generated one of the world’s most progressive national constitutions, presented to the Chilean public in 2022. Although that text was ultimately rejected in a national referendum, it drew on decades of diverse environmental, political, Indigenous, and community organizing and contained concepts and goals at the forefront of global efforts to create more just and equitable political systems, healthier living environments, and more resilient ecosystems. Drawing on research by faculty and students from the USA and Chile, chapters within this book address political memory, Indigenous representation, public participation, the Rights of Nature, environmental law, mining conflicts, natural commons, knowledge systems, and rural education. This book highlights important contributions from Chile’s 2022 reform efforts for diverse global responses to the erosion of democracy, environmental degradation, and climate change.
Date: 29 August 2024, 10:30am-12:30pm
Location: Girvetz 2320, UCSB Campus.
UC Santa Barbara
CREW Guest Speaker Series (Hybrid events)
For access information, please contact us:
https://crew.global.ucsb.edu/contact-us
We are delighted to be working with the Community Environmental Council in Santa Barbara to host this additional event with Prof. Giorgos Kallis -- a public Q&A on degrowth and alternative economics.
Date: 29 August 2024, 4:00m - 6:00pm
Location: 1219 State Street, Santa Barbara:
in the Atrium at the CEC 'Hub.'
Date: 11-12 April 2024.
Location: Annenberg Conference Room, UCSB Campus.
This event was funded by our NSF grant from the Conference: CRISES program (Award #2334233) -- a project on the decarbonization of energy systems, convening specialists based in a range of academic, non-profit, and community-based organizations. Project participants build on their diverse experiences of scholarly and engaged work to advance a common set of goals: better management and anticipation of the many social and environmental impacts that result from changes to energy systems.
Date: 21 April 2024, 10am-3pm.
Location: The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
152 North Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
The Plant Sale returns to The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA for its second year. Artist Alika Cooper's itinerant collaborative event brings together artists and growers from across the Los Angeles basin to celebrate and sell plants & related wares. The event will also feature a Sustainable Skillbuilding composting workshop from 12-1pm led by Compostable LA’s founder Monique Figueiredo. During this interactive conversation, participants will have the opportunity to ask a compost expert all of their burning questions, learn how to embrace this new habit, and hone their skills further!
Vendors: Ahram Park, Ali Prosch, Annie Hardy, Astrelle Johnquest, Banu, Cactus quest, California Exercise, Center for Restorative Environmental Work, Christy Roberts Berkowitz, Chthonic Ivy, Claire Dunn, Claysita Studio, Corey Fogel, Compostable LA, Emily Lacy, Emily Marchand, Fay Ray Clay, Flufffys, Francis Rivers, Frank Lemus, Furies, Garden Butterfly, Godspeed Radio, Gomez Exotica, Grow towards the light, Hardy Californians, Ivette y Davíd’s Mercadito Oaxaceño, Jake Kimar, Leaf and Spine, Lenita by Grita, Mamabotanica, Michelle Antonisse, Myco Myco, Nicole Wood, No Canyon Hills, Nude earth, Pascal Shirley, Plant Intelligence Agency, Plant time, Prickocereus, Reverie Ranch, Sunset Cultures, Tg plants, Treelionaires, Vita Grace, Xoxo, Zack Benson.
Date: November 13, 2023 – June 28, 2024
Location: Ocean Gallery, UCSB Library.
UC Santa Barbara
Fossil Free UC
This UCSB Library exhibition (November 13, 2023 – June 28, 2024) celebrates the achievement of the student-led campaign as a testament to the power of collective action to transform our university and our world.
Date: 11 October 2023, 12:30pm-1:45pm
Location: SSMS 2001, UCSB Campus.
UC Santa Barbara
Global Studies Colloquium Series
Fall 2023: Challenges in Global Political Economy
Presentation of our CREW Story Maps and recent article published in Global Social Challenges Journal:
“Decommissioning: Another critical challenge for energy transitions.”
Date: 12 July 2023, 9:00am-1:45pm
Location: J-Posgrad, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD). Santiago, Chile.
El Encuentro Internacional Estudiantil: Desafíos Medioambientales en Chile organizado por el Centro de Investigación en Tecnologías para la Sociedad (C+) de la Facultad de Ingeniería UDD junto al Departamento de Estudios Globales de la Universidad de California de Santa Bárbara.
Este evento tuvo por objetivo destacar y poner en común los hallazgos de las investigaciones en curso realizadas por alumnos de pregrado y postgrado nacionales e internacionales.
En esta instancia, colaboraron también estudiantes y voluntarios de ImpactoUDD, Vocalía de Sustentabilidad de la UDD, y Voluntarios por el Agua.
Click here to read more (in Spanish) about this event.
Click here to watch video recordings of the conference and presentations by our 4 Burdick Global Scholars Program student participants from UCSB.
Date: 25 May 2023, 2:00pm-4:00pm
Location: Loma Pelona Center conference room (UCSB)
This is an open invitation to a round table discussion with guest speakers Sourayan Mookerjea (University of Alberta) and Mijin Cha (UC Santa Cruz) in celebration of a new book - Energy and Environmental Justice: Energy and Environmental Justice Movements, Solidarities, and Critical Connections - by Tristan Partridge (UC Santa Barbara / CREW co-founder).
The event will take place at the Loma Pelona center on Thursday 25 May at 2.00pm.
This event is co-sponsored by: the Mellon-Sawyer Seminar on "Energy Justice in Global Perspective"; The IHC Research Focus Group on "Re-centering Energy Justice"; and the CREW Center for Restorative Environmental Work.
To care for each other and for the Earth: An interview with Elisa Loncón
**Click the link above to read an edited transcript of our group interview with Elisa Loncón, conducted by members of CREW and the Burdick Global Scholars Program**
Date: 20 April 2023, 2:30pm-4:00pm
Location: Loma Pelona Center conference room (UCSB)
This is an open invitation to a round table discussion with Elisa Loncón, linguist, professor, Mapuche leader, and first president of Chile's Constitutional Convention 2021-22, at the Loma Pelona center on Thursday April 20 at 2.30pm.
This event is part of a two-day conference, "Political Reconfigurations, Cultural Practices, and Artistic Manifestations of First Nations of the (Abya Yala) Americas" organized by the Spanish and Portuguese department.
Date: 1 March 2023, 12:30pm
Location: SSMS, room 2001 (UCSB)
Corrie Grosse (Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at College of Saint Benedict & Saint John’s University: CSBSJU) discusses her recent book, Working Across Lines: Resisting Extreme Energy Extraction (July 2022, University of California Press). This work investigates how people build effective energy justice coalitions across differences in political views, race and ethnicity, age, and strategic preferences. Grosse argues for four practices that are critical for movement building: focusing on core values of justice, accountability, and integrity; identifying the roots of injustice; cultivating relationships among activists; and welcoming difference. The book provides important models for bridging divides to reach common goals — lessons that are more relevant than ever in our polarized world! More info on the author's website here.
This event is part of the UCSB Department of Global Studies Colloquium Series.
Date: 23 February 2023, 3:00pm
Location: Girvetz Hall, room 2320 (UCSB)
Maite Salazar (conducts research, teaching, and outreach focused on the social aspects of biotechnology, sociotechnical controversies, and public participation in science. Salazar holds a PhD in Community Agriculture, Recreational and Resource Studies from Michigan State University and has worked recently on political participation and constitutional reform in Chile as part of the Decidimos initiative. This talk forms part of the Burdick Global Scholars Program currently led by CREW team members.
This event is co-sponsored by the Mellon Sawyer Seminar on Energy Justice in Global Perspective.
Date: 3 May 2022, 1:30pm
Location: Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO); Berlin, Germany.
CREW co-founders Javiera Barandiarán and Tristan Partridge give a talk on “Environmental Justice, Restorative Work, and Indispensability,” discussing restorative environmental work as both organizing strategy and as a mode of enacting solidarity, in dialogue with the center's interdisciplinary and historically comparative apparoches.