“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Thursday, November 29, 2012

Cultures of Energy Liveblog 1

Chevron have couriered over a position paper because we are all about to watch the movie Crude, which they feel is highly controversial.

Exciting!

Suzana Sawyer, Anthropology, UC Davis. Social and scientific approaches to political justice. Crude Chronicles: on Ecuador. Indigenous activism. Response to contaminative effects of oil was a commitment to refiguring transnational inequalities not just a battle over resources. Ecuador a major supplier of crude oil to the US. How neoliberal reforms have spurred a powerful indigenous movement.  Reading of Hardt and Negri.

Texaco-Chevron lawsuit filed in 1993 on behalf of 30 000 Ecuadorians: plaintiffs were awarded $9bn. American Ethnologist this month: Sawyer writes about unaccountability to local concerns. Profit, liability, risk, an unholy Trinity. Modularity of oil (cf Timothy Mitchell).

No comments: