Returning to the Argentine Puna, 2025

Over the past days, the first part of my research trip took me to northern Chile, where I visited my colleague Hans Gundermann in San Pedro de Atacama. Hans, an anthropologist, has spent years studying the relationship between Indigenous communities, lithium mining corporations, and the state at the Salar de Atacama. In 2022, we published a comparative analysis of lithium mining in Argentina and Chile in the Journal of Political Ecology, highlighting the greater vulnerability of Indigenous communities on the Argentine side due to weaker negotiating positions. Neither of us had been to the Argentine Puna recently, so we decided to cross the border together to update our impressions.

Between 2018 and 2019, I spent 11 months living in the Indigenous communities of the Argentine highlands, conducting research for my doctoral dissertation, and co-producing the documentary Bajo La Sal with Emiliano Bazzani. It had been six years since my last fieldwork in the region.

A landscape reorganized

Driving along national highway RN-52 toward the Salar de Olaroz-Cauchari, situated at 4,000 meters above sea level, the transformation is already visible from the road. To the north, the company Sales de Jujuy has expanded its lithium mining project. On the opposite side of the highway, Minera Exar – which entered commercial production in 2023 – has established its operations. The extent of evaporation pools glistening in the high-altitude sun becomes visible from the air, where I took the photograph below. It shows the massive scale of this reorganization.

These two operations are not isolated cases. A 2024 study by Dr. Romina L. López Steinmetz documents 90 lithium brine projects at various stages of development across 56 Salars and lagoons in northwest Argentina. Of the three already in the phase of commercial exploitation, two are located here, at the Salar de Olaroz-Cauchari in the department of Susques.

Minera Exar has opened its mine in 2023, located right across the street from the Sales de Jujuy mine.

Growth, optimism, and open questions

The economic effects were visible throughout the communities. New vehicles, new construction projects in Susques and Olaroz Chico, and locally-founded service companies – some now employing over 100 workers – indicate a period of significant economic activity. The newly built entrance portal to Olaroz Chico reads: "The host of mining." Many community members expressed more favorable attitudes toward the mining companies than during my earlier visits. Unemployment is less of an issue here than in most of Argentina and people from the provincial capital San Salvador de Jujuy are now moving into the highlands for work – a striking reversal of past migration patterns.

Olaroz Chico considers itself as “The host of mining”, so says the new entrance portal to the village.

Since President Milei took office in December 2023, the absence of the state in this remote region has become even more pronounced. Community development projects are now arranged directly with Sales de Jujuy and Minera Exar, bypassing provincial structures entirely.

These economic shifts have led to a generally positive outlook in the communities of the department of Susques. Yet beneath the optimism, concerns are growing. Several people I spoke with worry about what happens when the boom ends. Others complain about the gradual erosion of traditional livestock farming as the economic logic of the region shifts entirely toward mining services. These are questions few in the communities seem willing to confront directly – and ones that will likely define the region's future.

New construction projects in Olaroz Chico and Susques.