Paper short abstract:

This presentation deals with the infrastructures implemented during of the Amazonian Oriente's oil boom (1960s-1980s). From the specifies of the local environment to global dynamics, it analyzes the conditions that were needed for their installation and how they unsettled the rainforest.

Paper long abstract:

Today the production of energy in the Amazon region is a high stakes endeavor. The implementation of those multi-billion dollars oil extraction or hydroelectricity production infrastructures are condemned by local and international actors, because of their large impacts to the environment and communities. These large-scale infrastructures start to be built in the Amazon in the 1960s with the beginning of commercial oil extraction in its Oriente (Ecuador, Colombia and Peru), followed by hydroelectric dams in the Brazilian Amazon. From almost no activity in this domain, in a few decades energy became a highly productive sector and that has spread over the region.

This presentation will analyze the infrastructures for petroleum extraction and transportation implemented during what has been called the Amazonian oil boom, notably in Ecuador and Peru. It will develop on the conditions that were needed for their installation and how they unsettled the rainforest, sometimes in unexpected ways. From changes in the landscape and ecosystem, to the emergence of new building techniques but also environmental legislations, I will argue that thinking about energy infrastructure implementation in the Amazon offers important insights for the study of infrastructures. Linking state projects with capitalist dynamics, environmental destruction to social organization, this presentation will dwell on the ties of global processes, but also the specificity of local contexts.