SOAS Research Online

Abstract

By exploring what we call the ‘Finance-Extraction-Transitions Nexus’, this article contributes to the academic literature in two distinct ways. Firstly, it contributes to the growing strand of critical literature studying the shift in development paradigm towards finance-led interventions in Global South countries. We argue that there is an urgent need to expand this literature to explore the role of finance capital in shaping dynamics of extractivism more generally and of mineral extraction in particular. Secondly, the article expands the critical literature on extractivism and transitions that has emerged from Latin American scholarship. By including the analysis of financialization into the conceptualization of extractive growth strategies in Andean countries, we provide a novel way to researching the way in which the subordinate position in global financial capitalism and the increased demand for transition minerals exacerbates existing and creates new dependencies. Exploring this finance-extraction-transition nexus helps to evaluate the interplay between finance capital, the extraction of ‘green’ metals and minerals, and the material and socio-economic implications of transitions.