Subterranean estates : life worlds of oil and gas /
edited by Hannah Appel, Arthur Mason, and Michael Watts.
- xii, 418 pages ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-408) and index.
Oil for life : the Bureau of Mines and the biopolitics of the petroleum market / Velocity and viscosity / Deep oil and deep culture in the Russian Urals / Oil, masculinity and violence : Egbesu worship in the Niger Delta of Nigeria / The oil archives / Securing the natural gas boom : oil field service companies and hydraulic fracturing's regulatory exemptions / Crude contamination : law, science, and indeterminacy in Ecuador and beyond / The image world of Middle Eastern oil / Near futures and perfect hedges in the Gulf of Mexico / Securing oil : frontiers, risk and spaces of accumulated insecurity / Oil assemblages and the production of confusion : price fluctuations in two West African oil-producing economies / Offshore work : infrastructure and hydrocarbon capitalism in Equatorial Guinea / Black oil business : rogue pipelines, hydrocarbon dealers, and the "economics" of oil theft / The political economy of oil privatization in post-Soviet Kazakhstan / Carbon, convertibility, and the technopolitics of oil / Events collectives : the social life of a promise-disappointment cycle / Reserves, secrecy, and the science of oil prognostication in southern Arabia / Vicious transparency : Contesting Canada's hydrocarbon future / Matt Huber -- Peter Hitchcock -- Doug Rogers -- Rebecca Golden Timsar -- Andrew Barry -- Sarah Wylie -- Suzana Sawyer -- Mona Damluji -- Leigh Johnson -- Michael J. Watts -- Jane I. Guyer -- Hannah Appel -- Elizabeth Gelber -- Saulesh Yessenova -- Hannah Knox -- Arthur Mason -- Mandana E. Limbert -- Anna Zalik.
The scale and reach of the global oil and gas industry, valued at several trillions of dollars, is almost impossible to grasp. Despite its vast technical expertise and scientific sophistication, the industry betrays a startling degree of inexactitude and empirical disagreement about foundational questions of quantity, output, and price. As an industry typified by concentrated economic and political power, its operations are obscured by secrecy and security. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the social sciences typically approach oil as a metonym--of modernity, money, geopolitics, violence, corruption, curse, ur-commodity--rather than considering the daily life of the industry itself and of the hydrocarbons around which it is built. Instead, Subterranean Estates gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars and experts to provide a critical topography of the hydrocarbon industry, understood not solely as an assemblage of corporate forms but rather as an expansive and porous network of laborers and technologies, representation and expertise, and the ways of life oil and gas produce at points of extraction, production, marketing, consumption, and combustion. By accounting for oil as empirical and experiential, the contributors begin to demystify a commodity too often given almost demiurgic power. Subterranean Estates shifts critical attention away from an exclusive focus on global oil firms toward often overlooked aspects of the industry, including insurance, finance, law, and the role of consultants and community organizations. Based on ethnographic research from around the world (Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Oman, the United States, Ecuador, Chad, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iran, and Russia), and featuring a photoessay on the lived experiences of those who inhabit a universe populated by oil rigs, pipelines, and gas flares, this innovative volume provides a new perspective on the material, symbolic, cultural, and social meanings of this multidimensional world.
9780801453441 0801453445 9780801479861 080147986X
40025067955
Cornell Univ Pr, C/O Cup Services Attn: Holly Po Box 6525, Ithaca, NY, USA, 14851 SAN 202-1862
2014040860
Petroleum industry and trade--Social aspects.
Petroleum industry and trade--Political aspects.
Gas industry--Social aspects.
Gas industry--Political aspects.
Gas industry--Political aspects.
Gas industry--Social aspects.
Petroleum industry and trade--Political aspects.
Petroleum industry and trade--Social aspects.
Erdölwirtschaft
Erdgaswirtschaft
Wirtschaftssoziologie
Oljeindustri--sociala aspekter.
Oljeindustri--politiska aspekter.
Gasindustri--politiska aspekter.
Pétrole--Industrie et commerce--Aspect social.
Pétrole--Industrie et commerce--Aspect politique.
Gaz--Industrie--Aspect social.
Gaz--Industrie--Aspect politique.
HD9560.5 / .S798 2015
338.2/728
Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-408) and index.
Oil for life : the Bureau of Mines and the biopolitics of the petroleum market / Velocity and viscosity / Deep oil and deep culture in the Russian Urals / Oil, masculinity and violence : Egbesu worship in the Niger Delta of Nigeria / The oil archives / Securing the natural gas boom : oil field service companies and hydraulic fracturing's regulatory exemptions / Crude contamination : law, science, and indeterminacy in Ecuador and beyond / The image world of Middle Eastern oil / Near futures and perfect hedges in the Gulf of Mexico / Securing oil : frontiers, risk and spaces of accumulated insecurity / Oil assemblages and the production of confusion : price fluctuations in two West African oil-producing economies / Offshore work : infrastructure and hydrocarbon capitalism in Equatorial Guinea / Black oil business : rogue pipelines, hydrocarbon dealers, and the "economics" of oil theft / The political economy of oil privatization in post-Soviet Kazakhstan / Carbon, convertibility, and the technopolitics of oil / Events collectives : the social life of a promise-disappointment cycle / Reserves, secrecy, and the science of oil prognostication in southern Arabia / Vicious transparency : Contesting Canada's hydrocarbon future / Matt Huber -- Peter Hitchcock -- Doug Rogers -- Rebecca Golden Timsar -- Andrew Barry -- Sarah Wylie -- Suzana Sawyer -- Mona Damluji -- Leigh Johnson -- Michael J. Watts -- Jane I. Guyer -- Hannah Appel -- Elizabeth Gelber -- Saulesh Yessenova -- Hannah Knox -- Arthur Mason -- Mandana E. Limbert -- Anna Zalik.
The scale and reach of the global oil and gas industry, valued at several trillions of dollars, is almost impossible to grasp. Despite its vast technical expertise and scientific sophistication, the industry betrays a startling degree of inexactitude and empirical disagreement about foundational questions of quantity, output, and price. As an industry typified by concentrated economic and political power, its operations are obscured by secrecy and security. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that the social sciences typically approach oil as a metonym--of modernity, money, geopolitics, violence, corruption, curse, ur-commodity--rather than considering the daily life of the industry itself and of the hydrocarbons around which it is built. Instead, Subterranean Estates gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars and experts to provide a critical topography of the hydrocarbon industry, understood not solely as an assemblage of corporate forms but rather as an expansive and porous network of laborers and technologies, representation and expertise, and the ways of life oil and gas produce at points of extraction, production, marketing, consumption, and combustion. By accounting for oil as empirical and experiential, the contributors begin to demystify a commodity too often given almost demiurgic power. Subterranean Estates shifts critical attention away from an exclusive focus on global oil firms toward often overlooked aspects of the industry, including insurance, finance, law, and the role of consultants and community organizations. Based on ethnographic research from around the world (Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Oman, the United States, Ecuador, Chad, the United Kingdom, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iran, and Russia), and featuring a photoessay on the lived experiences of those who inhabit a universe populated by oil rigs, pipelines, and gas flares, this innovative volume provides a new perspective on the material, symbolic, cultural, and social meanings of this multidimensional world.
9780801453441 0801453445 9780801479861 080147986X
40025067955
Cornell Univ Pr, C/O Cup Services Attn: Holly Po Box 6525, Ithaca, NY, USA, 14851 SAN 202-1862
2014040860
Petroleum industry and trade--Social aspects.
Petroleum industry and trade--Political aspects.
Gas industry--Social aspects.
Gas industry--Political aspects.
Gas industry--Political aspects.
Gas industry--Social aspects.
Petroleum industry and trade--Political aspects.
Petroleum industry and trade--Social aspects.
Erdölwirtschaft
Erdgaswirtschaft
Wirtschaftssoziologie
Oljeindustri--sociala aspekter.
Oljeindustri--politiska aspekter.
Gasindustri--politiska aspekter.
Pétrole--Industrie et commerce--Aspect social.
Pétrole--Industrie et commerce--Aspect politique.
Gaz--Industrie--Aspect social.
Gaz--Industrie--Aspect politique.
HD9560.5 / .S798 2015
338.2/728