The emergence of a narrative connecting the production of lithium and its derivatives to the
process of decarbonization of the planetary energy matrix obscures the profound
transformations this activity imparts in the regions where the soft metal is obtained. This
article ethnographically explores what I conceptualize as off-sites of lithium in the Atacama
Desert. These diverse and transformed socioscapes that frame the geophysical pathway of
brine, from the extraction places to the ports from where the final products are shipped, also …