Mark Goodale

Mark Goodale is a Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology and Director of the Laboratory of Cultural and Social Anthropology (LACS) at the University of Lausanne. During the 2023–2024 academic year, he served as a Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography (SAME) and affiliated with St Antony’s College. His research focuses on lithium energy systems, green energy transitions, and their socio-political and environmental implications.

He led a Swiss National Science Foundation-funded project (2019–2023) examining lithium extraction in Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, its links to battery production, EV manufacturing, and debates over sustainable energy futures. His work bridges cultural anthropology with critical studies of energy and climate justice.

Recent outputs include contributions to Anthropological Quarterly, Social Research, and Anthropology Today, as well as a co-edited special issue (Critique of Anthropology) on energy transitions and resource imaginaries. He is also authoring a book with the University of California Press on lithium extraction and contradictions in green energy transitions.

• Awards: Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship (2023–2024)
• Grants: Swiss National Science Foundation (2019–2023)

His research lab, LACS, explores global energy systems through interdisciplinary lenses, emphasizing material, political, and ecological dimensions of resource extraction and technological innovation.