Externalised costs of electric automobility: Social-ecological conflicts of lithium extraction in Chile

Nowadays, electric automobility is considered to be the magic bullet in combating the heating climate. The necessary raw materials for the transformation of automobility in the global North, however, originate mainly from the global South to where the socialecological costs are externalised. While the global North's externalisation society with its imperial mode of living drives the electric vehicle forward in the fast lane, it is the internalisation society of the global South that cushions the hidden costs from which nature as a whole and a particular part of the population increasingly suffer. Nonetheless, the propertied class with its immense power resources, and hopeful wage earners with their desire for a peripheric imperial mode of living defend this construct successfully from outside attacks to this day as the Chilean case proves. This contribution intends to reveal the social-ecological costs resulting from the lithium extraction in Chile as result of the electrification of passenger cars in the EU, on the one hand, and to explain the muddle of power structures, especially in the global South, on the other, while giving the responsible actors a face and the parties concerned a voice.