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Mads Barbesgaard Associate

Our people — Associate

Mads Barbesgaard is an activist and a scholar with a history of working with TNI since 2011. As the former chair-person of the Danish solidarity organization, Global Aktion, Mads was part of the collective that spurred on TNI’s groundbreaking work on ocean grabbing.

Mads Barbesgaard

Mads worked as the Foreign Affairs Secretary for the Red-Green Alliance, a Danish left-wing party, where he collaborated closely with TNI on countering the EU’s trade and investment regime. During his Ph.D. studies, he joined TNI’s Myanmar in Focus program delving into the dynamics of resource control and access amidst war and capitalist transition in the country. Presently, Mads is an associate senior lecturer at the Department of Human Geography at Lund University. His current research focuses on unraveling capitalist strategies amidst crises (economic, war, climate, zoonotic diseases, etc.) in the mining and agricultural sectors. He believed that if these are to be effectively challenged, they must first be properly understood.    

Areas of expertise

Natural resource extraction; agrarian change; political economy and geopolitics of the oceans.

 

Latest work

  • The 'new Darwinian world' of the energy transition CATL, capitalist strategies and emerging state-capital alliances

    • Just Transition
    • Trade
    • China

    This longread examines CATL’s rise during China’s capitalist boom and explores its global strategies for securing raw material supplies and market access, featuring case studies from Indonesia and Hungary. We conclude by posing questions for further research on the less visible yet crucial actors in EV supply chains. This is the first in a series analyzing CATL's global accumulation strategies.

    Longread by
    • Mads Barbesgaard
    • Hao Zhang
    • Rachmi Hertanti
    • Agnes Gagyi
    • Pietje Vervest

  • Niobium and the EU Green Dreams or War Machines?

    • Bilateral Investment Treaties
    • Just Transition
    • Climate Crisis
    cover image

    In late 2019, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched the European Green Deal, aiming for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan seeks to establish a leading green technology industry by securing critical raw materials (CRMs) necessary for green technologies. However, concerns arise that the EU’s green agenda might mask the sourcing of CRMs for carbon-intensive and military purposes. This briefing reveals niobium’s supply chain, primarily serving the automotive, aerospace, and arms industries, questioning whether the Green Deal’s goals are compromised. Are we truly advancing green technology, or inadvertently fuelling traditional industries?

    Policy briefing by
    • Lucía Bárcena
    • Mads Barbesgaard
    • Steve Rolf
    • Julian Germann
    • Joseph Baines
    • Sean Kenji Starrs
    • Alexander Lurz
    • Philip Steeg
    • Cristian Trujillo

  • La verdad detrás de los minerales Cómo la industria minera pretende lucrar con la transición energética

    • Transición Justa
    • Democracia Energética
    • Acaparamiento de tierras y aguas
    • Multistakeholderismo
    Cover image

    La mayoría de las personas probablemente ignoren que las pocas empresas transnacionales que dominan el sector de la minería desempeñan un papel clave en proporcionar insumos para productos con los que interactuamos a diario: desde teléfonos inteligentes hasta alimentos. las ganancias de esas empresas provienen de su función en la producción de estos bienes: controlan la extracción de minerales en el punto de partida de las grandes cadenas mundiales de suministro, que van de los paisajes minerales de Chile y el Congo a –en el caso de los teléfonos celulares– a nuestros bolsillos.

    Policy briefing by
    • Mads Barbesgaard
    • Andy Whitmore
See all work by Mads Barbesgaard