This thesis is the result of an anthropologist’s sustained engagement (2017-2023) with a chemical element that matters particularly at the current juncture of energy transition, namely lithium. It consists of a carefully curated collection of stories that tell about lithium’s converging and diverging significance in Bolivia and beyond. In particular, it probes the promises and pitfalls of the Bolivian government’s state lithium project, which around 2008 set out with the ambitious goal to build a truly national industry that not only extracts raw materials but also produces batteries. Most of the events and voices featuring in this thesis are situated at the margins of that project, from where they highlight its many failures and unintended consequences. Emphasizing these, however, is not about judging the intentions or capacities of those who planned and implemented the project. Rather, it is about learning from those moments in which everything does not go according to plan. The thesis centers on one particular moment, namely the failure of a joint venture that became the subject of major controversy and was finally canceled amid political turmoil. Unpacking such controversy from different points of view, the thesis seeks to unsettle lithium’s significance according to globally prevailing stories that tell it as a strategic, or “critical,” raw material for the batteries that will power the energy transition. If battery supply chains are about the uninterrupted flow of lithium, among other materials, then what are the stakes involved in the encounters that make up these chains? Or in other words: Lithium is critical how, where and for whom?