Plans for lithium mining in Northern Portugal are an ongoing controversy, thematizing conflicting understandings of sociotechnical futures and generating significant local opposition and sociopolitical and academic debate. This paper draws on the framework of Sociotechnical Imaginaries (STI) to examine the distinct co-productions of natural, social and epistemological orders informing this controversy. The paper is supported by a qualitative methodology, drawing on 40 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2020 and 2022 with a wide range of stakeholders: State representatives, local politicians, members of parliament, local residents, representatives of anti-mining movements and environmental and climate organizations, stakeholders from mining companies and academics. The article identifies three main STI of li-mining in Portugal: Imaginary 1 – Development; Imaginary 2 – Risks; Imaginary 3 – Counterhegemony. To make sense of these conflicting extractive futures, the paper advances a conceptual framework based on three main dimensions - Place, Publics and Economics – arguing that different versions of nature, society and knowledge are enacted throughout these heterogenous STI. The main academic contribution of this article is the development of a conceptual framework to analyze conflicting STI of extractive futures, engaging with scholarship on alternative, contested and bounded imaginaries. Additionally, the article contributes to social science scholarship on lithium mining in Portugal, developing a nuanced understanding of the socio-material and epistemological dimensions underpinning this conflict.
As climate conflicts intensify and societal polarization grows, civil society organizations like Fridays for Future (FFF) utilize discursive power to navigate the tension between radical critique and pragmatic action. This paper investigates how narrative futures inform the collective action strategies of FFF Germany. The central research questions explore the link between these narrated futures and understandings of sustainability transformations they reflect, as well as their implications for collective action and the politics of sustainability transformations. The analysis follows a mixed-methods design to study FFF Germany’s channel on Twitter/X (2018 – 2025) focusing on a qualitative analysis of narrative futures; emotion, morality and sentiment analysis shaping these narrative futures; and a quantitative analysis based on protest logics and communication building on work by Della Porta. Findings show that narrative futures of FFF do not focus on spelling out utopian visions. They rather balance (post-)apocalyptic urgency with pragmatic, solution-oriented calls to action and hope arising from a sense of community. Questions of politics and power in sustainability transformations are addressed by nuanced roles in the narrative assigned to more or less antagonistic adversaries (fossil industry) and preventers (politicians), where only the latter are called to action and held morally accountable to institutional change. The study contributes to social movement and sustainability transformations research by demonstrating how narrative futures serve as reflexive tools to navigate the tensions between radical critique and pragmatic change.
