The paradoxes of the energy transition in the Amazon

My emerging research program investigates the profound contradiction facing the Peruvian Amazon: this crucial global carbon sink is under escalating pressure due to its potential to supply "critical minerals" (like copper and rare earths) essential for the global energy transition. This work explores how Amazonian states attempt to balance this global climate imperative with domestic extraction.

I analyze this tension using the concept of extractive imaginaries—powerful narratives that redefine the intrinsic value of territories according to the resources they harbor (e.g., energy transition minerals vs. carbon capture capacity). This notion, which I developed while researching the unwanted geographies of small-scale mining in my dissertation, is now applied to the new frontier of large-scale copper mining.

The Edna Bailey Sussman Fund (with merit) supported my first approximations into extractives governance and the energy transition.