Lecture 2 - Towards an Anthropology of Oil Flashcards
(22 cards)
Ken Saro-Wiwa - All for my people
- fighting against oil corporations in Nigeria (Ogoniland), executed by military government
- environmental activist
Ogoniland - Niger Delta
Minority communities living there
Pipelines emerging - oil spills, etc
MOSOP - Ken Saro-Wiwa
movement for survival of Ogoni people
Ogoni Bill of Rights
- increased autonomy for ogoni
- fair share in the proceeds of oil extraction
- remediation of environmental damage to ogoni lands
UN came to Ogoniland and saw that …
Oil spills led to water contamination and environmental degradation of Ogoniland that would take 30 years and 1 billion dollars to clean up = evidencing andKen Saro-Wiwa’s struggles
Clean up has not started yet! (2014)
Shell
left Ogoniland after Ken’s activism, and gave 15.5 million dollars after a lawsuit
also controversial how the International community condemned the execution of Saro-Wiwa but not the cause he fought for…
The power of oil (Crude capitalism)
Oil’s power is considered to come from its natural properties of the commodity …. yet it is the social system (capitalism) that gives these properties meaning and significance
World in crises
- global warming
- war
- pollution
Fossil fuel and modern world
modern societies are built on CHEAP fossil fuels - 80% of global energy from OIL, GAS and COAL
- humanities still increasing use of oil is a main driver of the crisis in the world and links the crises together
- stopping using fossil fuels requires sacrifices changing lifestyles and ways of life
= cultural changes (where we fit in as anthropologist scholars)
Energy running out
will impact
- price of foods, plastics, anything transported by land or air rises with the price of oil (seen in Ukraine war already)
oil is THE driver of economic growth
- global oil is already declining - leading to increased efforts to locate new deposits and increased securitising of existing supplies
- 47 years of oil left at current consumption (a few years ago lol)
- 133 years of coal left at annual consumption
Alternative energies to fossil fuels
- necessary to find alternative sources
- although world leaders have known this, we do not do this - why not? (Ghosh)
- eg wind power, hydropower, geothermal energy, biofuel, solar energy
search for alternative methods without asking why - should reconsider our needs, not find new solutions.
Unpredictable futures? what is to come…
- Growing inequality between those who have access to cheap energy and those who cannot afford it
- Labor conditions are likely to diminish in those places where energy becomes unaffordable
- People likely to produce/consume less, destabilising growth-based economies
- Growing class-inequality - poorest hit hardest and first
- Localize and regionalize production systems
- Face a rethinking of universalist systems claims - decentralising
- Serious concerns about how humanity will feed itself as we now are dependent on fossil fuels for agriculture
Anthropological perspective on crisis
- comparative of other crisis
- symbolic analysis - how do people make sense of this
- how does the growth paradigm produce inequalities
- how can human societies power down.
Shell in Nigeria
- a petrostate in nigeria in 1956
- shell = dutch and UK together
- bringing development through oil! but actually achieve its business mission, facilitate ethnic strifes and destabilise the country so military can help strike deals
- continues to blame the state for failure to provide the sufficient security to its pipelines
- blame pipeline leaks on sabotage than faulty equipment
- refused to do clean ups despite legally responsible (under Corporate Social Responsibily (CSR) - framed as what they do good to community but they actually cause the damage - link to Large extractive mining industries inAfrica!)
- no fish, no clean water, health implications for the ogoni
Ogoniland Niger River Delta
- profits benefit Shell and shareholders and Nigerian state’s elites
- Minority has minimally profited from destruction of their way of life
- Drinking water and local food are polluted
- Negative impacts on biodiversity and health
- Life expectancy is 10 years less than national average (41 instead of 51)
The curse of crude - Ken Saro-Wiwa
- lead actions against Dutch royal shell oil in early 1990s for environmental damage done to land and waters in ogoniland
- imprisoned and exectuted along with other environmental protesters by the Nigerian state in 1995
- global outrage bringing to light the predatory and extractive practices of “big oil” in developing oil economies
Researching the petro-state
- most corporations are transnational making it harder to target them - also higher tax evasions - harder to regulate
by Reyna and Behrends
Petrostate
Oil state - national economy is predominantly reliant on the extraction and export of oil and gas resources - centralised in narrow elite, ledaing to heightened vulnerability of corruption and unaccountable political institutions
Emergence of petro-state
1970s boom in global production of oil - oil rents became enormous
Social development
Beneficent, sustainable economic, social and political change for all segments of a population - thought to come from oil money aka petrodollars
Crude development
- in most developing petrostates, eg Nigeria, economic performance worsened
- inequality grew - “dirt poor” - those poor became poorer
- more power to those in power - state, military dictators, authoritarian regimes (link Ferguson)
- internal and external conflicts over oil-related conflicts
Decarbonising petrostates
- hard to transit to renewable energy sources
- economic and political challenges - those in power will resist.
- lack of regulatory frameworks
- paradox to decrease fossil fuel consumption whilst securing economic stability
Possible actions for petrostates
- Curtail public spending
- Implementing new taxes
- Restructure economies
