The hidden truths of the Twin Transition – CRMs, extractivism & indigenous dispossession

Manfredi, M; Nitschke, J. (2025)

Content

This contribution critically examines the EU Green and Digital Twin Transition through a political ecology and degrowth lens, arguing that it reproduces extractivist and colonial dynamics rather than addressing the roots of the ecological crisis. The Twin Transition relies on the large-scale extraction of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs), primarily sourced from the Global South, where Indigenous and rural communities face dispossession and the erosion of their ways of life.

Focusing on the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (2023), the paper maps the relationship between CRMs, their technological applications, and their sites of extraction, revealing how “green” industrial strategies externalize social and ecological costs. A detailed case study of lithium extraction in Salinas Grandes (Argentina) illustrates a clash between Western extractivist logics and Indigenous cosmovisions rooted in Buen Vivir, which conceive nature as a living entity rather than a resource.

Drawing on the concept of social imaginaries, the paper argues that the Green Transition risks producing epistemicide by undermining alternative ecological imaginaries essential for envisioning genuinely sustainable futures.

Keywords

twin transition, critical raw materials, extractivism, lithium, indigenous dispossession, degrowth, environmental justice

Citation

Manfredi, M., Nitschke, J. (2025). The hidden truths of the Twin Transition – CRMs, extractivism & indigenous dispossession. ESEE–Degrowth 2024, Pontevedra, 18–21 June 2024. ISBN 978-84-1188-045-9, pp. 797–800.

Links

• https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iqGVVfasop2ZVKS6TTb0ybz49tt3NpGe/view?usp=sharing