Women at the forefront of Life: Social Reproduction in Lithium Extraction in Jujuy, Argentina

Abstract

This thesis examines how Indigenous women sustain the social reproduction of life in the context of lithium extraction in Jujuy, Argentina. Using Social Reproduction Theory and the Re-patriarchalization of Territories (RPT), I analyze caregiving, domestic work, community well-being, and resource management in two basins in Jujuy, Argentina: Olaroz-Cauchari and Salinas Grandes-Guayatayoc. Methods included focused ethnography during an eighteen-day fieldwork period with participant observation, semi-structured and informal interviews, and document analysis.

Findings show that women’s everyday labor keeps households and communities functioning while also subsidizing extraction. In the Olaroz-Cauchari basin, mining money reorganizes relations, eroding reciprocity, deepening dependence on the extractive economy, and correlating with conflict and health concerns. In Salinas Grandes-Guayatayoc, collective organization slows the commodification of ties yet faces fragmentation and the constant pressure of project expansion. Across both basins, women report tighter time, higher costs in terms of time and money to secure water and food, surveillance, and institutional abandonment, while company presence becomes a daily organizer of life.

The analysis links SRT domains to territorial reordering that RPT offers as a lens: caregiving to corporeal and cultural dimensions, community well-being to political and cultural, domestic work to ecological and economic, and resource management to ecological and political. A new pairing connects resource management and community well-being to economic and cultural shifts. These reorganizations narrow the material and social bases of care and increase exposure to gendered violence at home and at work, with silencing and overwork reported across cases.

Empirically, the thesis documents who the women are and what they do: mothers, grandmothers, single mothers, traders, artisans, lodge owners, community health agents, organization members, and basin-level coordinators who “do a little bit of everything” so that life can continue under extractive pressure. Theoretically, it brings SRT and RPT into conversation to show how lithium extraction reorganizes the conditions of social reproduction and reinforces patriarchal hierarchies that restrict women’s autonomy, mobility, and decision-making power. Methodologically, it offers an ethnographic exemplification that centers women’s voices in a literature dominated by aggregate models and project-level metrics.

Policy implications include funding independent community centers and intercommunity transport for assemblies, formally recognizing binding consultation protocols such as Kachi Yupi, disclosure and independent audits of water and lithium extraction, sanctions for misreporting with committees that include women, targeted support for non-mining households during construction phases, and gender-sensitive assessment and monitoring. A just transition must place social reproduction and Indigenous women's voices at the center by guaranteeing water, time, safety, and voice, and by recognizing Indigenous women’s knowledge in territorial decisions.