Refusal of lithium mining in Serbia: exploring post-green extractivism

The Jadar Project in Serbia, led by the mining corporation Rio Tinto, was set to become one of Europe’s biggest lithium mines – an element widely understood as crucial for the green transition. Yet the project was met with widespread resistance, with tens of thousands of people protesting against it. This article is concerned with the politics of refusal of lithium mining in Serbia, arguing that refusal must be understood as multidimensional rather than merely passive or negative. Through ethnographic investigation bordering research and activism, the article brings together three empirical examples of the refusal's emancipatory and affirmative potential. The article theorizes post-green extractivism as a refusal of the mono-green future based on growth, mining and climate technofixes, which seeks to foreclose spaces of resistance. The politics of refusal then represent an unmasking of green extractivism, revealing its underlying greyness, while opening up the possibilities for alternative green futures to be envisioned.