Extraction

Succeeds in the tough balancing act of accomplishing an even-handed approach to a topic associated with considerable controversy… [Extraction] has remarkable span, ranging from the historical corporate takeover of territories, through a meticulously-evidenced critique of greenwashing in the guise of corporate social responsibility, to the challenges of building effective socioecological movements. While these tropes are well-rehearsed, there is real value in their robust demonstration for lithium frontiers.–Siddharth Sareen “Journal of Development”
What harms are worth enduring to hasten the death of the fossil-fuel era? Who should endure them? And more importantly, who decides? Such questions are at the heart of Extraction–questions that Riofrancos, embracing the complexity of an issue too often framed in all-or-nothing terms, provides an indispensable inquiry into with her book.–Casey A. Williams “The Nation”
Based on extensive fieldwork on three continents in the global politics of mining, especially of lithium, Extraction is more than an academic effort to produce new knowledge. It is also an effort to make readers see, hear, and feel some of the unnoticed nodes of the vast political and economic project of climate-change mitigation.–J.S. Maloy “Political Science Quarterly”
Riofrancos carefully describes the ‘geoeconomics’ of lithium mining… Ultimately, the extraction dilemma for lithium and other elements as methods for meeting human ‘wants’ versus ‘needs’ will likely endure. Books like Extraction help us to remain vigilant about the costs of such choices.–Saleem H. Ali “Science Magazine”
Extraction reminds us that the transition to an economy free from fossil fuels still allows for the endurance of extractivism. To disrupt these rapacious continuities, we need Thea Riofrancos’s rigorous research, searching interrogation, and honest reflection.–Naomi Klein, New York Times best-selling author of The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything

Thea Riofrancos is a political science professor at Providence College, and Strategic Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute. Her research has been featured in essays in The New York Times, The Washington Post, N+1, and The Guardian. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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