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- Convenors:
-
Itay Noy
(UCL)
Agustin Diz (University of Edinburgh)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Mette High
(University of St Andrews)
- Formats:
- Papers
- Stream:
- Infrastructure and energy
- Sessions:
- Monday 28 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Extraction of energy resources has profound effects for local communities and environments. This panel will explore local political responses to it in order to widen locally grounded understandings of the energy sector, and the degrees of resistance and entanglement that communities demonstrate.
Long Abstract:
Across the global South, energy extraction operations have been expanding to satisfy growing global demand. Such operations carry profound, uneven effects for local communities, livelihoods, and living environments – from different forms of ‘development’ to land expropriation and ecological degradation. Local responses to energy extraction, too, are variegated, ranging from vigorous opposition to ready compliance by different groups, with complex strategies, objectives, and compromises.
This panel will explore the diversity of political reactions to extraction in order to widen locally embedded understandings of the energy sector and its impacts. Such understandings are essential for addressing the challenges of environmental change. Local politics around energy and extraction can have different driving factors, characteristics, and ideological articulations – from halting extraction to preserve agrarian livelihoods, the local environment, or community control over natural resources; to demands for compensation for land loss and other damages, and/or inclusion in the potential benefits of extractive projects such as industrial employment.
What understandings and ethical perspectives on the environment, ecology, and energy do these different political responses reveal? What visions of development and ways of living a good life do they reflect? Moreover, how do different forms of extractive politics, and their ethical and ideological underpinnings, affect and help explain the ways in which communities either act to obstruct, or themselves become entangled in, extractive industrialism? What implications do these insights have for suggested transitions to non-carbon energy, and what do they tell us about the nature and capacity of political change to tackle climate change?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 28 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Through an anthropological lens, I seek to explore the oil nexus by focusing on an empirical case study of the extraction fringes in Turkana, Kenya. I will focus on the imagination of a 'better future' and the moral implication of the promise of revenue distribution within a development 'limbo'.
Paper long abstract:
On March 2012 the oil discovery by the Irish drilling company Tullow in Turkana County, Kenya, has been celebrated as a future booster to economic growth and development of the politically marginalized Kenyan northern frontiers. In order to benefit from the oil as fast as possible, the Government and investors went fast-tracking oil operations in the region. A number of treaties and laws were released, inter alia the 2018 revenue-sharing agreement that proclaims the redistribution of five percent of the revenues to the local community. The promise of a 'rightful share' (Ferguson 2015) is vital for the understanding of subsequent development in the region. The claim for access to the wealth is a request for new politics of distribution, which challenges conventional dependency and refers to the legitimate participation in the process of development.
Yet, an accumulation of trials in January 2020 led to the suspension of operations and a reevaluation of the viability of the project by the leading extraction company. Thus, the absence of foreign employees, the closing of offices and a lack of transparency result in a development 'limbo', which is a vibrant atmosphere of uncertainty. Consequently, fast changing social realities informed by various worldviews fundamentally affect imaginations of a 'better future' and self-accomplishment. With my case study of a village in the proximity of the oil wells, I analyze the dynamic process of reevaluation and reappropriation of the transformed space and discuss the (re)negotiation of access to wealth, respectability, authority, honor and prestige.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how oil exploration in the Niger Delta shapes the life experiences of young people, with particular attention to how these experiences affect young men in particular.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is about how oil exploration in the Niger Delta shapes the life experiences of young people, with special attention to how these experiences affect young men in particular. Specifically, it draws upon Bourdieu's sociology and the concept of hegemonic masculinity as the theoretical basis to examine how the intersecting identities of gender, ethnicity and religion collide with unequal processes of resource distribution to shape youth agency. The paper concludes that while achieving inclusive development is not an easy task, making real progress in a highly unequal context like Nigeria depends on addressing the specific needs and aspirations of young men (plus women) many of whom live at the margins of their community.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will demonstrate how the spatiality and temporality of coal mining-induced dispossession processes shape the variegated responses of the rural communities. It is argued that the dominant caste-class communities play an active role in the (re)production of carbon economies.
Paper long abstract:
The expansion of open cast coal mines in India soon after the independence, not only resulted in the plethora of environmental destruction but also dispossession and displacement of agriculture-based rural communities. Political reactions from communities in different geographical settings have been varied and complex to these carbon economies. In this context, the present paper attempts to understand such reactions among the heterogeneous rural population in a coal mining region of eastern India. Drawing upon 16 months of fieldwork in Talcher Coalfields of eastern India, the paper argues that the spatiality and temporality of coal-led dispossession processes shape the responses of local communities.
Long-term analysis shows that there is co-existence of different political reactions, in particular, resistance, acquiescence and incorporation by the communities against coal mining over the years. Moreover, the interaction of pre-existing unequal agrarian relations with the processes of coal led dispossession results in variegated reactions among the different class and caste groups. (Re)negotiation by landowners from dominant caste groups makes them active agent in (re)production of the carbon economy of Talcher by securing formal employment and other remunerative informal employment in coal mines, particularly, labour contractors and societies for carrying out subcontracted coal mines work. However, landless Dalit communities are found to be engaged in precarious casual labour and coal scavenging. The paper contributes to our understanding of how rural communities are involved in the carbon economies, and their responses to energy extraction vary depending on the spatiality and temporality of carbon economies.
Paper short abstract:
Bolivia's relationship with its natural resources has been very contentious historically. Currently, hydrocarbons and lithium dominate discourse and development. This essay demonstrates how Evo Morales used resource nationalist rhetoric but a pragmatic economic policy to build political legitimacy.
Paper long abstract:
Bolivia's relationship with its natural resources has been very contentious historically. The discovery of enormous silver reserves in Bolivia's altiplano by the Spanish colonizers marked the beginning of Bolivia's extractive economy which has consistently served foreign rather than domestic interests. Discovery of hydrocarbons in the 20th century prompted many different policy paths for how to deal with the nation's hydrocarbons to achieve economic development. Lithium is a much "newer" natural resource both in terms of global primacy and in the Bolivian extractivist context but has become a pillar of economic development in Bolivia. Political rhetoric by the Movimiento al Socialismo regading both hydrocarbons and lithium is resource nationalist.
This resource nationalist discourse regarding lithium and hydrocarbons has been very similar and revolves around (1) the demonization of foreign, especially Western and neoliberal, companies compounded with a 'from Bolivia for Bolivians' touch, and (2) these resources being the driver of development. Despite strong rhetoric, the economic policies to achieve resource nationalism were much more pragmatic. Hydrocarbons witnessed a 'soft' nationalization with high taxes but transnational corporations remained in charge of the extraction process. Bolivia did try to construct a small lithium industry 'by Bolivians and for Bolivians.' In order to scale-up production, however, the state has been seeking foreign partners to provide investment and expertise to the anger of the general public. Hence, Morales has built his political legitimacy around walking a fine line between resource nationalist rhetoric and more nuanced neoliberal economic policy.