In this episode On Extractivism, the conversation centres on how the unpredictability of extractive economies opens and forecloses various futures, a global market premised on the extraction of natural resources and raw materials. Our guest is Mark Goodale, professor of cultural and social anthropology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland whose work explores lithium extraction, new global green economies, and the long histories of extractivism in South America. His research encompasses law, human rights, politics, ideology, and long-term ethnographic studies in Bolivia, where his projects have examined government justice and recognition under Evo Morales' human rights activism. Goodale is the author of numerous books, such as Dilemmas of Modernity. Bolivian Encounters with Law and Liberalism (2008) Surrendering to Utopia. An Anthropology of Human Rights (2009), Anthropology and Law. A Critical Introduction (2017), A Revolution in Fragments. Traversing Scales of Justice, Ideology and Practice in Bolivia (2019) and Reinventing Human Rights (2022)
This episode focuses on Extracting the Future. Lithium in an Era of Energy Transition (2025), Goodale`s most recent book.
Host: George Paul Meiu, Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Institute of Social Anthropology at the University of Basel.
Production: Zainabu Jallo (Institute of Social Anthropology) in
collaboration with the New Media Center at the University of Basel.
