Episode 37 - Metals, Minerals, and Movements with Thea Rio Francos
Thea Riofrancos (@triofrancos) is an Associate Professor of Political Science whose research focuses on resource extraction, renewable energy, climate change, green technology, social movements, and the left in Latin America. Jackie and Thea talk lithium wars, extraction, green capitalism and imperialism, and how the transition to a renewable economy must reckon with settler colonialism and respect for Indigenous communities.
Thea is an assistant professor of political science at Providence College, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2020-2022), and a Radcliffe Institute Fellow (2020-2021). She authored Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020) and co-authoredA Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019). She's written a number of academic articles in World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, and Cultural Studies. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Boston Review, The Baffler, n+1, Dissent, Jacobin, among others.