“Gênero é o Novo Meio Ambiente”: Perspectivas Ambientais e de Gênero na Mineração de Lítio para a Transição Energética no Brasil

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the implications of energy transition, in particular the exploitation of critical minerals in Brazil, on women's territories and bodies, and corporate strategies for legitimizing and neutralizing criticism based on the environmental and gender debate. The company Sigma Lithium in the Jequitinhonha Valley, Minas Gerais, e used as a case study due to its narratives around the production of “green lithium” and gender. The theoretical framework is based on the notions of energy transition and environmentalization, affected women and the spirit of capitalism. The methodology used is qualitative analysis based on primary sources, such as company documents and interviews, including field research in the Minas Gerais municipalities of Araçuaí and Itinga in 2023, and in Belo Horizonte in the same year. It becomes clear that a new spirit of extractive capitalism and the expansion of the energy frontier is being constructed, one that is discursively sophisticated, environmentalized and mobilizing women, but under the same patriarchal and colonial logic of expropriation of territories and bodies, in particular of women.