Onlinefirst and open access: Repairing harm: Desalination in copper mining and claims for responsibility in Chile's Atacama Desert - Anna Heikkinen, 2026
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.…
“Recently, copper demand related to the global clean energy transition has further intensified extraction. To secure water access for extractive operations, Chile's mining industry is increasingly turning to desalinated seawater, which it also frames as a practice of responsibility. This study explores how local communities experience mining-related harm on water supplies and claim responsibility in their daily lives in the Atacama Desert, and how these experiences are shaped by corporate discourses and practices of environmental repair.”