Short abstract:

Asking questions about the material-affective links between technoscientific and psychiatric lithium consumption via extraction, toxicity, and speculation, this paper explores points of akin-ship to understanding electric vehicles and human consumers of lithium in chemical relation.

Long abstract:

Like electric vehicles, some human bodies are ‘made better’ with lithium. Backed by the scientific belief that it is the optimal choice for the perpetual forward motion of these human and vehicular bodies, lithium consumption enables some futurities while foreclosing others.

This is an exploratory paper that outlines some early stages of thesis research, questioning under which conditions lithium is enabling, disabling, healing, toxic, conductive, destructive, or simply ambivalent. This paper focuses on some points of material-affective entanglement that link technoscientific and psychiatric lithium consumption, including extraction, toxicity, and speculation. In doing so it develops a notion of akin-ship as a way of thinking chemically mediated experiences of lithium consumption in relation to each other.