The third wave of critical minerals

Abstract For the third time in a century, the concept of critical minerals has become a central theme in international trade and security debates. Materials criticality discourse first arose in the late 1930s and 1940s. It was taken up again from the mid-1970s through to mid-1980s and has become ubiquitous in post-pandemic debates concerning the global energy transition in a context of escalating geopolitical volatility. This article examines the evolution of critical minerals discourse over a century, with a focus on these three periods. It seeks to identify the contexts in which criticality claims have emerged and to examine the politics of critical minerals discourse in this third wave. It argues that critical minerals discourse has evolved in response to geopolitical instability understood by the US to threaten its hegemony; and that critical minerals discourse in its third wave has thus far served four major political functions. First, critical minerals discourse has served as a rhetorical device for asserting that the security of the US and its allies lies in the defence of US hegemony, and not in the defence of international institutions and trade norms. Second, critical minerals discourse has served as an effective means of leveraging geopolitical instability in favour of extractive interests. Third, critical minerals discourse has worked to re-mystify the economics of market speculation and the predictability of state intervention in markets. Finally, critical minerals discourse has been used to leverage the existential urgency of the climate crisis in favour of elite and extractive interests and against local communities and ecosystems.