Director, Co-Founder
Email: javiera@ucsb.edu
Javiera Barandiarán is Associate Professor in the Global Studies program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Barandiarán received her Ph.D. in 2013 from the University of California, Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy and Management. She holds a Masters in Public Policy also from Berkeley and received her B.A. in politics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2022 she was awarded a Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin for her research on lithium mining. Her research has been awarded support from the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller and Mellon Foundations, Chile's National Agency for Science (ANID) and others. Her work explores the intersection of science, environment, and development in Latin America.
For prospective graduate students: see the Global Studies and Latin American and Iberian Studies program websites for information on our programs. I will consider prospective PhD candidates with a demonstrated interest in STS research.
Projects
Director of the Center for Restorative Environmental Work (CREW), which examines emergent frameworks and strategies for rebuilding socioecological relations through active connections in California and Latin America to the broader Pacific Rim.
Co-PI on the project Irreversible returns: A study on glaciology and glacial geo-engineering in Chile in the context of the Anthropocene, with Cristián Simonetti and José Ragas of the Catholic University of Chile (Fondecyt project).
PI and co-PI on various projects related to lithium mining, including In the shadows of climate mitigation: The politics of mining for a just energy transition, with Craig Johnson, Teresa Kramarz, Don Kingsbury and Susan Park (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada project).
Select Publications
On lithium mining:
Barandiaran, J. forthcoming. Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium. MIT Press, expected late 2025.
Blair, et al., 2022. Exhausted: How We Can Stop Lithium Mining from Depleting Water Resources, Draining Wetlands, and Harming Communities in South America
Barandiaran, 2019. “Lithium and Development Imaginaries in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.” World Development. 113, pp. 381-391.
On Rights of Nature:
Barandiaran, et al. 2022. Derechos de la Naturaleza en Chile: Argumentos para su desarrollo constitucional.
Podcast: “Rights of Nature: Global Experiences.” Hacia una Constitución Ecológica podcast, January 10.
On Chilean politics and constitutional reform:
Podcast: DECIDIMOS participar - Reflections on science, systems of knowledge and Chile's new draft constitution.
Barandiaran, 2021. Lo que el Estado neoliberal no sabe: Conflictos científicos y política ambiental en Chile.
Barandiaran, 2018. Science and Environment in Chile: The Politics of Expert Advice in a Neoliberal Democracy.
On Environmental and Energy Justice:
Ureta et al., 2023. “Strength out of weakness: Rethinking scientific engagement with the ecological crisis as strategic action.” Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene (2023) 11 (1).
Barandiaran et al., 2022. Special stream issue of Media + Environment.