Future of Latin American Lithium

Complicated & Chaotic Maps

Complex Adaptive Systems Map & Final Assignment

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Possible/Probable Futures Based on Map Data

The tables below present emergent trends or possible disruptions that could affect the lithium governance system in the Lithium Triangle, drawn from the multiscalar systems maps above. The analysis uses the theoretical lens of the Ciclo Conector, which conceptualizes geopolitics as a competition over the speed and continuity of flows across material and immaterial networks. Each trend is analyzed in relation to specific parts of the map, indicating where changes might alter the structure or behavior of the system.

For each trend, the table identifies a Map Impact Zone, specifying which nodes (actors, resources, institutions, infrastructures) or connections (relationships, flows) would be directly involved. The Effect describes how the change might alter the dynamics of these components, such as modifying their role, speed, or position in the network. The Disrupts column explains whether the change could weaken, reclassify, or transform the function of a node or connection, or remove it from the system entirely.

This analysis is intended to support interpretation of systemic vulnerability, resilience, and strategic leverage points, without presuming predictive certainty or deterministic outcomes.

🇨🇳 1. Radical Acceleration of Chinese Lithium Processing Capacity

This table analyzes how a sudden increase in China’s lithium processing speed could affect the governance system. It explains which nodes and connections are affected in the map, describes the systemic effect, and notes how actor roles or flows could be disrupted. It draws from both the Complex Adaptive Systems and Complicated & Chaotic maps.

🇨🇱 2. Chile’s National Lithium Strategy Pivot (greater state control)

This table explains how Chile’s policy shift toward stronger state participation in lithium extraction and processing would affect the system. It identifies which actors and connections are implicated, how the governance structure changes, and what disruptions could follow. Relevant nodes are present in both maps.

💧 3. Intensifying Water Scarcity in Salt Flats

This table explores how worsening water scarcity in lithium extraction zones (such as Salar de Atacama, Salar de Uyuni, Hombre Muerto) impacts system components. It focuses on environmental and infrastructural nodes, and how material flows and extraction activities are altered. The issue appears in both maps with different causal pathways.

🪖 4. Militarization of Resource Corridors

This table examines the systemic effects if lithium export routes and key transport corridors experience military control or increased security measures. It outlines which infrastructural and logistical nodes are affected, what functional changes result, and how connections might be reclassified. This scenario is visualized more explicitly in the Complicated & Chaotic map.

📉 5. Sharp Lithium Price Collapse (global oversupply or tech shift)

This table explains how a sudden drop in lithium prices—whether caused by oversupply, alternative technologies, or shifts in demand—would impact economic nodes and fiscal connections in the system. It shows how revenue-dependent actors might lose viability and how value chain links could be weakened. The scenario is modeled in both maps under economic and governance loops.

🧬 6. Breakthrough in Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) Tech

This table describes how a technological breakthrough in Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) would transform production infrastructure and value chain steps. It highlights changes to environmental, technological, and processing nodes, showing how existing evaporation-based infrastructure could be bypassed or rendered obsolete. The innovation is captured mainly in the Complex Adaptive Systems map.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 7. Indigenous-Led Governance Gains Legal Authority

This table analyzes the systemic impact if Indigenous communities achieve stronger legal standing in decision-making over lithium projects. It focuses on governance, institutional, and community nodes, showing how their connections to extraction activities may gain new conditionality. This scenario is visible in both maps through governance loops and legal intervention nodes.

🚚 8. Regional Integration Initiative (Lithium Triangle cooperative bloc)

This table explains how a formal cooperation agreement among Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile to coordinate lithium governance would affect the system. It identifies institutional and governance nodes involved, the creation of new coordinating structures, and the possible impacts on national-level autonomy. Both maps include nodes relevant to regional cooperation.

Theoretical Lens: Ciclos Conectores & Multiscalar Power

Ciclos conectores (Rodríguez, 2024) offer a geopolitical framework grounded in the acceleration and obstruction of global flows. They refer to the infrastructure, logistics, technologies, and institutions that enable the circulation of goods, information, labor, energy, and capital across space. A ciclo conector is not a metaphor; it is a material configuration — a supply chain, a data cable, a treaty, a refinery. Together, these form the broader Ciclo Conector, the composite rhythm of human interaction in a given period. Power accrues not only to those who possess resources, but to those who accelerate their cycles and disrupt those of others. In the context of lithium, ciclos conectores link extraction zones in Latin America to chemical processing plants in China, to battery factories in South Korea, to electric vehicle markets in Europe and North America. Every stage — mining, refining, transport, conversion, consumption — forms part of a competitive temporal sequence. Control over these sequences yields leverage over the broader geopolitical order. The ability to move faster — to extract, refine, assemble, and deploy — is a condition of dominance. Rodríguez’s insight reframes conventional approaches to global power. States and firms do not just compete over territory or ideology; they compete over tempo. The pace and continuity of exchange determine the distribution of strategic advantage. From this perspective, lithium governance cannot be understood only at the level of national regulation or international agreements. It must be mapped as a system of nested and overlapping cycles — what we call multiscalar power: power that emerges from interactions across local, national, regional, and global circuits. The map operationalizes this perspective. It visualizes how lithium circulates through assemblages of actors, infrastructures, and chokepoints. It shows where cycles are reinforced, where they fragment, and where they might be reversed. The ciclo conector is not a closed loop. It is a contested space where future alignments — economic, political, ecological — are being forged.

The Ciclo Conector (Rodríguez, 2024) is not a metaphor. It is the sum of all tangible and intangible interactions between human beings in a given period — goods, data, relationships, treaties, ideas, and code. These exchanges form overlapping rhythms of motion and influence, structured by infrastructure and competition. Power accrues not to those who merely possess resources, but to those who accelerate their cycles and obstruct those of others. In this logic, domination is temporal: to move faster is to control more.

Lithium is embedded in this framework. From its extraction in the Atacama Desert to its conversion in Chinese refineries and deployment in European electric vehicles, lithium moves through a ciclo conector of extraction, transformation, and circulation. Each link in this chain — mineral, port, contract, factory — is not just a site of production but a temporal battleground. Rodríguez’s dictum — quien golpea primero, golpea dos veces — reveals how states and firms race to gain first-mover advantage, capturing control over sequences of value before rivals can intervene.

This theory reframes geopolitics away from territorial possession and toward the velocity of exchange. The world's most powerful actors are not necessarily those with the largest landmass or armies, but those that can accelerate their own cycles while jamming those of others. These actors deploy what Rodríguez calls aceleradores geopolíticos del ciclo — military bases, logistical chokepoints, telecommunications infrastructure, trade corridors — to manipulate the tempo of global flows. In this schema, ports become conectores, deserts become vacíos, and South American lithium states become frictores: hinges between larger powers in a race to command the tempo of the energy transition.

The map visualizes this terrain. It does not merely show where things are. It shows how things move — through circuits, not hierarchies. It reveals the nested scales through which governance operates: local disruptions in Jujuy shape national debates in Argentina, which echo through Chinese refining policies and global auto markets. This is multiscalar power — a condition in which decisions, frictions, and alignments cascade across spatial levels. Within this structure, the global is not above the local; it emerges from it.

Yet the ciclos conectores are not stable. They fracture and recompose. As Rodríguez notes, no actor governs the entire cycle. Instead, states and firms struggle to accelerate what they can and disrupt what they cannot. The lithium map is a diagram of these struggles. It does not simulate their outcomes, but makes visible the infrastructures, chokepoints, and temporal maneuvers through which the future is being organized.

Methodology

The map supports exploration, pattern recognition, signal identification, and scenario development.

It is not designed as a forecasting tool. Foresight prioritizes the exploration of multiple plausible futures and strategic uncertainties over the prediction of singular outcomes. This exploratory stance reflects a deliberate methodological and epistemological choice. Foresight emphasizes complexity, contingency, and interpretive openness. By contrast, approaches such as system dynamics simulations focus on quantifiable behavior within bounded systems. These methods could complement the map but serve fundamentally different purposes and rely on different assumptions about how futures can be known or anticipated.

Limitations

The movement and material lifespan of mineral resources through connector cycles can be understood as what Deleuze and Guattari, 1984 call assemblages—temporary alignments of infrastructure, institutions, territory, and governance that hold together just long enough to exert force. These formations emerge without central coordination and shift over time through contingency, rupture, and realignment. Assemblage theory (as formulated by D&G, and expanded on by DeLanda (2006), emphasizes this processual and unstable character. These dynamics exceed what Kumu’s interface can meaningfully represent. As a result, assemblage functions as a conceptual orientation that informs how we interpret governance complexity, but it is not explicitly modeled in the map.

Kumu does not support temporal modeling, which limits the ability to represent changes in actor relationships, governance dynamics, and systemic feedback over time. While the platform allows for interactive filtering and structural exploration, it does not simulate temporal processes such as formation, dissolution, or reconfiguration of relationships. This limits the capacity to model how systems evolve, mutate, or respond to external shocks.

The map operationalizes this perspective. It visualizes how lithium circulates through actors, infrastructures, and chokepoints, revealing where connector cycles reinforce each other, where they fragment, and where they might be rerouted. However, the map presents these dynamics as structural relationships rather than temporal processes. While ciclos conectores are defined by movement and sequencing, Kumu cannot capture rhythm or velocity directly. Instead, the map offers a static depiction of circulation patterns that can be interpreted in temporal terms. It identifies where time is being compressed or extended, even if it cannot model that motion in real time. The Ciclo Conector is not a closed loop. It is a contested space where future alignments (economic, political, ecological) are being assembled under unequal conditions of speed and control.