Contemporary Social Science

Materials Criticality: Justice, Equity and Governance of Strategic Elements

The transition to decarbonised energy systems has dramatically intensified the use of a suite of minerals and technology metals, now routinely designated as “critical materials”, by governments, economic blocs and international actors. As well as being crucial to the low-carbon technologies that will underpin the energy transition (used in the batteries and motors of electric vehicles, wind turbine generators, devices used in power electronics and solar systems), these materials are also key to a range of parallel technology shifts that are happening alongside the shift to cleaner technologies – the shift to digitalisation and increased technology sophistication.

The framing of “criticality” is hotly contested as different locales define their own frameworks of what is constituted as critical. However, these lenses also raise key questions. Whose security is the priority? Who bears the burden of this security for others – both in terms of environmental and social impacts. Who benefits and who loses out? As nations and blocs are engaged in competitive endeavour to secure their own critical material supply chains, the global landscape is being shaped by the intensifying geopolitical tensions that this competition produces.

In the wake of this great shift comes a new resource nationalism and in some cases neo-imperialism, the proliferation of new trade agreements, new alliances, and a new era of protectionism.

As actors in the space construct new rival frameworks and instruments for mineral access,  from bilateral “minerals security” agreements, to pan-continental initiatives, the benefits of this transition are not uniformly distributed and profound inequalities exist. In some cases nations are using access to critical minerals in exchange for security guarantees, aid, lifesaving medicines or economic development. This raises a huge number of ethical and social questions that thus far have been insufficiently explored in the social literature.

The structural shifts that are necessary in order to ameliorate the challenges of materials criticality are often viewed through the physical, technical, or narrow techno-economic lenses, however, many core friction points are exclusively within the domain of the social sciences.

Building upon upon Contemporary Social Science’s expanding engagement with the socio-institutional realities of net-zero delivery. This special issue builds upon recent journal dialogues concerning a just transition, place-based justice in industrial transitions and the complex, often non-linear governance of regional circular resource loops. In this special issue, the focal point changes from broad systemic circularity to acute geopolitical, ethical, and extractivist realities of specific strategic elements.

The extraction of critical raw materials can result in the creation of acute social problems and challenges, as well as environmental governance and justice concerns. There is an implicit tension between the activities of large scale organised mining and artisanal and small scale mining contexts in many countries. Extraction in informal contexts is frequently associated with unsafe working practices, hazardous conditions, child labour, gender inequality and the financing and proliferation of armed conflicts. Environmentally, there are many impacts that arise that impact communities from mercury and other pollutant contamination, water shortages and pollution from extractive practices, and the impacts on livelihoods and communities these environmental impacts create.

Whilst industrial scale mining is presented as a development pathway, there is the “resource curse” which results in the communities possessing resources, seldomly being the beneficiaries of the extraction, with ensuing displacement, dispossession and destruction often the result of extractivist activity. The rights and sovereignty of indigenous peoples are seldom given prominence in the governance and regulation of these endeavours.

Meanwhile, whilst the circular economy of critical minerals is often seen as a solution, and is fast gaining policy recognition as a solution for better custody of these resources once extracted, there are significant political, social, technical, economic and regulatory barriers to fully realise the potential of these solutions. How can manufacturers be encouraged to design their products for recycling? How can consumers be more effectively incentivised to recycle their electrical products? These are unanswered questions to challenges of materials criticality that lie squarely in the social domain, and without adequate answers the technical potential of the technologies that aim to enable a circular economy of critical materials cannot be realised.

This special issue seeks original contributions from across the breadth of the social sciences that critically explore the multidimensional challenge presented by responding to the problems posed by materials criticality and the enabling social solutions that will create a juster, fairer more equitable context for the human races extraction, use and recycling of these strategic elements.

The issue seeks to move from the limited techno-economic frame often used to explore the socio-technical systems that constitute the broader system of critical materials extraction, use, reuse and disposal. We aim to solicit contributions that can make sense of the governance, justice, geopolitical, place-based, social and user dimensions of any stage of the circular economy of systems materially embedded in the critical materials context. We welcome contributions that are theoretically informed and empirically grounded. We especially welcome contributions that are deeply engaged with the perspectives of producer communities, workers, marginalised groups and are especially supportive of contributions from groups under-represented in academic publishing.

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