Browsing by Author "Irarrazaval, Felipe"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Adaptation to the climate change and management of natural risks: searching for synthesis in urban planning
    (PONTIFICA UNIV CATOLICA CHILE, INST GEOGRAFIA, 2016) Barton, Jonathan R.; Irarrazaval, Felipe
    Since the late 1980s, a new vocabulary associated with concerns about climate change has emerged. Nevertheless, this article argues that the concepts used to describe urban adaptation are a part of the history of urban planning. Consequently, climate change should not be seen as a new phenomenon disconnected from this past. By means of a historically contextualized conceptual discussion and a review of urban planning instruments used to address climate change in Chile, the article argues that climate change has been central to urban planning and that the emphasis on climate change is no more than a reaffirmation of this connection built on the concept of 'urban risk'. It concludes that an integrated and historically contextualized approach based on urban risk should form the basis to the response within the framework of the National Climate Change Adaptation Policy (2014) in conjunction with the National Urban Development Policy (2014).
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Extractivism beyond territory: Examining the socio-spatial relations of the natural gas industry in Peru and Bolivia
    (UNIV BARCELONA, DEPT GEOGRAFIA HUMANA, 2021) Irarrazaval, Felipe
    The Latin American literature about 'extractivism' has shown the spatial contradictions of the development models based on the extensive and intensive appropriation of natural resources. The core spatial concept of such a literature has been the territory. From such a concept, the literature addresses the state, to examine the organization of the resource-dependent development model, and the local resistances to show the varieties of communitarian practices and local projects of resource governance. Whereas these concepts have highlighted the territorial dimension of the extractivismo, there are manifold socio-spatial processes that underpin the geographical assemblage of extractivismo that ask for a more dynamic a relational spatial examination. This paper progresses in such a direction by analyzing the socio-spatial dynamics in which hydrocarbon industry stands in Peru. More specifically, by researching the interactions between production networks and their territorial embeddedness, and the production of scalar regimes of natural gas rents within extractives states.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Formalization beyond legalization: ENAMI and the promotion of small-scale mining in Chile
    (2023) Atienza, Miguel; Scholvin, Soren; Irarrazaval, Felipe; Arias-Loyola, Martin
    This article explains how ENAMI, the Chilean National Mining Company (ENAMI), has legalized and formalized artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). The experience reveals how promoting formalization strategies that provide much broader support for ASM, beyond mining licenses and tenure rights (i.e., legalization), defined as formalization (e.g., geological data, mining equipment, and skills transfer programs), is vital. Information gathered from secondary sources and semi-structured interviews reveals that while legalization of ASM has been largely successful in Chile, there are still challenges in terms of formalization, especially improvement of exploration and production. Furthermore, ENAMI needs to modernize its own installations and development model to afford ASM greater opportunities of becoming a sustainable and competitive business activity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    From crisis to stability and back again: the fragility of environmental governance in the Chilean salmon industry
    (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2021) Bustos Gallardo, Beatriz; Irarrazaval, Felipe
    In the last two decades, the 2008 Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) virus and the 2016 algal blooms crises have placed the Chilean salmon industry at risk and tested the capacity of its governance mechanisms to solve environmental and economic contradictions and ensure the industry's continuity and its sustainability. Although in the 2008 crisis the state redefined mechanisms of property, control and access to natural resources to strengthen the resilience of the salmon industry, the lessons learned by the system and the community between one crisis and the next were not enough to avoid a new crisis. Chile's existing governance mechanisms are reactive and not proactive and, therefore, their capacity to lead the industry towards long-term sustainable practices is flawed.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Mobilising Rents: Natural Gas Production Networks and the Landlord State in Peru and Bolivia
    (WILEY, 2022) Irarrazaval, Felipe
    The ongoing choreography of extractive industries asks for a deeper appraisal about the processes and scales underpinning resource extraction. This paper unpacks how the assembly between natural gas production networks, extractivist states and local politics is anchored in resource peripheries in Peru and Bolivia through contingent schemes of value distribution. From a critical production network approach, the paper examines the transformation of resource peripheries through the transfer of natural gas rents to sub-national governments and, more specifically, through investments in public infrastructure. Such investments embed natural gas production networks to local politics through three processes: providing an image of modernisation and progress; coopting local elites through corruption; and mobilising local labour. In conclusion, the articulation between production networks and extractivist states involves an entangled scheme of rent distribution that flows at very local levels and consolidates multi-scalar arrangements for resource extraction.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Natural gas revenues, subnational politics, and agrarian change in Peru and Bolivia
    (2022) Irarrazaval, Felipe; Viale, Claudia
    The literature about natural resources and development has largely described states' failure to translate large resource endowments into sustainable development. Consequently, terms like resource curse or Dutch disease have become widely accepted. However, the literature examining this process at the subnational level has been less conclusive regarding the local effects, such as economic diversification. It is therefore pertinent to examine the contextual conditions underpinning both the expenditure of resource rents at the subnational level and the effects of such expenditures on economic diversification, particularly on the agrarian sector. To do so, this contribution deploys a comparative analysis between the Tarija department in Bolivia and La Convencion province in Peru. Both are hydrocarbon-rich areas in which subnational governments received massive amounts of resource rents. A deep examination based on qualitative and quantitative data permits the affirmation that whereas similar place-specific conditions boosted a massive investment of resource rents into public infrastructure, the composition of the agrarian sector defined a different trajectory in each case. While the strong peasant organization of Tarija obtained a direct transfer of resource rents, the transfer of those rents to the peasants in La Convencion was only through wages conditioned to work in the construction sector. As such, resource rents undermined the agrarian sector in La Convencion, while in Tarija the sector remained stable and potentially stronger in the long run.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    One step forward, two steps back? Shifting accumulation strategies in the lithium production network in Chile
    (2023) Irarrazaval, Felipe; Carrasco, Sebastian
    The global race for critical minerals for the energy transition is triggering manifold discourses and initiatives in resource-rich countries regarding how to take advantage of the moment. From conventional accumulation strategies based on the capture of resource rents to more ambitious strategies seeking to move forward in the value chain, resource peripheries are in a decisive conjuncture. While the literature discussing the development and embeddedness of battery production networks in mineral-rich countries is a solid starting point, this article seeks to examine how the contingent position of mineral-rich states in the production network is the outcome of internal and external struggles that define its accumulation strategy. For such purpose, this contribution examines the making and unmaking of accumulation strategies based on lithium extraction in Chile, the country with the world & PRIME;s largest reserves. The results show that a pendular movement between the strategy of exporting lithium brine at a large scale to appropriate resource rents and the development of value-added products in the country has undermined the development of the lithium value chain in Chile. Conclusions indicate that it is crucial to define a transversal and sustainable strategy that allows the country to take advantage of the energy transition.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Trends in household energy-related GHG emissions during COVID-19 in four Chilean cities
    (TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2022) Rojas, Carolina; Simon, Francois; Muniz, Ivan; Quintana, Marc; Irarrazaval, Felipe; Stamm, Caroline; Santos, Benedita; CEDEUS (Chile)
    The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has strongly affected economies and human lifestyles globally. The changes observed in domestic energy consumption patterns have had an impact on household greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Since GHG emissions inventories are only available at the country level and at annual intervals, most studies have calculated the local emission variations by extrapolating annual emissions with smaller time and territorial scale consumption data. This research presents a bottom-up method, based on the exploitation of a survey addressed to 1200 households, that provides the information to calculate directly the variation in their energy-related GHG emissions, without the need for extrapolations. This method has been applied to four medium-sized Chilean cities with serious air quality problems. Given the high correlation between atmospheric pollutants such as NOx and CO2 emissions, we estimate that before the appearance of COVID-19, per capita CO2 emissions were already high. The results show that space heating-related GHG emissions have increased moderately (between 1 and 6%), while emissions from electricity and gas consumption for non-heating uses have increased significantly (between 8 and 23%). This has harmed the household economy, highlighting the importance of considering socioeconomic aspects when assessing the impact of COVID-19 in its entirety.