"New horizons in the ecology of labour - competing socio ecological transitions in Indonesia's turn to desalination in copper mining"

In the context of the introduction of desalination as a sustainable technology into the much contested copper supply chain in Indonesia, this study seeks to understand how competing socio-ecological transformations are shaped by key actors involved in sustainable transitions in Indonesia. The study will analyse the development of a

new desalination plant in Gresik, East Java for use by PTFI's Grasberg copper mine in West Papua, using a historical geographical materialist approach to animate dialogues between labour geography and political ecology surrounding the role of worker agency in sustainable transitions (Baglioni et al. 2022; Coe, 2021; Natarajan and

Parsons, 2021). The study will use interviews of key actors (workers using and producing desalinated water, union officials, social movement representatives, project managers, and financiers), secondary material related to the plant design, and site visits to produce a political ecology of industrial desalination at a new site in Gresik,

East Java. The aim of the study will be to understand how labourers are shaping sustainable transitions and to assess whether this aligns with the introduction of new technologies in natural resource sectors. Referring to Indonesia's regulatory context, the study will also aim to draw conclusions about the role of the state and

financialization in the production of labour and nature across the rapidly growing global copper supply chain.