Social warfare for lithium extraction? Open-pit lithium mining, counterinsurgency tactics and enforcing green extractivism in northern Portugal

Abstract

The European Union (EU) is highly dependent on importing raw materials for low-carbon infrastructures from around the globe. This material dependence has, since 2019, initiated legislation and efforts to intensify mining within the EU. The Iberian Peninsula remains a principle target area for the EU's critical raw material (CRM) mining initiatives. This article explores the making of the “Mina do Barroso” (Barroso Mine) in northern Portugal, which threatens a “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System” and will potentially become the largest open-pit lithium mine of Western Europe. This prospective mining project represents an investment and public funding opportunity for mining companies. The European Commission and the Portuguese government are applying increasing political pressures to establish this mine to make international decarbonization benchmarks through rapidly expanding electric vehicles (EVs) and energy storage system (ESS). The Barroso agrarian communities are threatened with extensive socio-ecological impacts, leading locals, (some) climate activists and environmental organizations to reject this mining project. Company personnel and the Portuguese government are confronting growing opposition, blockades and a resolute “Minas Não!” (No to Mines!). We explore the subtle efforts attempting to engineer the social acceptance of the Mina do Barroso, revealing the ‘slow’ social warfare tactics employed by the company to infiltrate rural social bonds, exploit psycho-social vulnerabilities and attempt to disable anti-mining organizing and unity within the region. This article demonstrates the insidious social technologies of pacification employed to engineer extraction and assemble an open-pit lithium mine with severe socio-ecological impacts in northern Portugal.