‘The government’s announcement in 2005 that the ABCO corporation had begun drilling for oil in Darfur prompted some humanitarian workers to conclude that the government’s brutal scorched-earth policies were intended to drive people off the land to open it to drilling by transnational oil companies.’ 

Singer, M. 2009. Introduction to syndemics: a critical approach to public and community health. P. 176.

This is in relation to the genocide committed by central Sudanese government against the people of the Darfur region. I have to mention that Singer does not provide an in-text source for this and I did not scour the entire bibliography to find one, therefore, I do not know how accurate this is. 

Jacob Heath (685615)

 

Very interesting! I wonder if this contradiction is really inevitable, or it comes from a bad understanding of what economic growth/wealth means. Even more, if this contradiction just proves that we have not understood what environment can give us (how long did it took us to fully explore renewable energies?). If we were to pursue economic growth under ‘climate responsible terms’, would all definitions of sustainability converge? 

Response to Edda by Rebecca
When reading this article, I too thought about the tension between the SDG’s where a successful outcome can sometimes contradict one another, how can we sustain the environment and the lives of the poor. In this paper specifically, I was interested in how a range of contrasting attitudes were revealed to uncover the driving force and purpose behind them. For me, this article made me question what is actually meant by sustainability? It shows how different actors with different interpretations can invoke the term to serve very different goals. 

Response to Ali
I agree,  the illusion and short sighted nature of oil extraction is that it seems to offer freedom, but never delivers.  

 

 

 

 

 

This particular part caught my attention. In part because I liked the term socially thin to describe the transformation in production/labour helped by ‘…gargantuan equipment the size of suburban U.S. homes…’ allowing for a less-human workforce. I have seen Australia’s equivalent mining equipment in real life when I visited years ago – gargantuan is the perfect word to describe the equipment. They are unbelievably monstrous. I feel like you can imagine it when reading or from looking at photos but seeing them in real life is a completely different matter. 

 

Anyway, returning to the passage quoted and what particularly captured my attention about the socially thin term. I wondered what will anthropologists study, in terms of the mining industry, when (or if, though it is a very likely if) a human labour force is no longer needed in mining extraction. Through this, I am referring to the trajectory that most forms of labour are taking, that is, autonomous forms of technology, due to the science-technology union that is so beneficial to capital. I have no doubts that there will still be things for anthropologists to study, should this happen in mining (and elsewhere); but what will happen to the concept(s) of human labour and focus on human workers?

Jacob Heath 685615

Response by Elliot:

I really enjoyed this article, especially it's emphasis on the embodied experience of mining, even when it is undertaken in these gargantuan machines. I wonder if you have seen the film 'Moon', it tackles a similar concept about a 'near-future' where resource extraction is absent of a human labour force - the total alienation of the workforce. However, I would hesitate to conclude that the human would be absent, nor that there would little for the anthropologist to study. I am sceptical of how quick this process would occur and even if it does, where there is changes to the environment and change to climate, there is an influence on humans and communities.

Elliot

Yet, I think that this text also shows that oil has a lot to do with Anderson’s idea of nations. Watts quotes different authors that talk about oil in elusive terms:

“oil creates the illusion (…) of a completely changed life, life without work, life for free… In this sense oil is a fairy tale and like every fairy tale a bit of a lie” (51)

“oil, more than any other commodity, illustrates both in the importance and the mystification of natural resources in the modern world” (53)

Oil as a myth, as a tale, as a lie, kind of moves in the same imperfect vocabulary that nations do in ‘imagined communities’: they are not immutable entities, they are projections of individual imaginations. Since oil is at the core of nation-building processes, doesn’t this the prove that (capitalist) nation-states rest on illusions? 

If anybody else has read ‘Imagines communities’, what do you think? - Laura Torres

Response to Laura:

Your comment on oil and its relevance to Anderson's Imagined Communities led me to consider Watts argument on fragmentation in a different light. Whilst it is true that the dispute over oil in the Niger Delta has led to increased conflict between the different ethnic groups in the region, it has also led to increased political activism and visibility for different indigenous groups. The division sowed by oil has created stronger bonds and possibly identities within ethnic communities, created in opposition to other groups.

Claire Bate-Roullin

Response to Laura: Indeed, anderson's imagined communities is a good analogy to invoke. On a separate note, Charles Tilly compared state making to war making calling it an organized crime, and in this case, oil makes a good lubricant (pun intended!) in the organization efforts!

-Anuradha-

Response to Laura:
I also found the link between nation-building and petro-capitalism very interesting. I think Watts was able to complicate the relationship between two: on one hand, like you said, it complicates nation-building. When oil flows into weak institutions, it produces 'corrupt development', and acts to "fragment, pulverize, disintegrate and discredit the state" (61). At the same time, however, he notes that oil is also a centralizing force, a fetishized commodity that plays a role in the national imagination. I hence think he portrays oil as a highly ambivalent force.
- Edda (667994) 

Response to Claudia:

I think drawing on Mark Carney is appropriate and I also found the idea that negative environmental externalities are productive for increasing GDP a worrying one. I agree with you that Carney’s argument of moving towards sustainability as a means for economic gain can be seen as a continuation of the trend of leveraging degradation against economic gain. However, I do believe that it can be a step in the right direction as I do not see other pragmatic alternatives being proposed within western politics. I also found his discussion of Value verus values a ‘valuable’ one and I believe t related well to this. [v]alues (virtues, social, environmental, etc.) have been transfigured as Value (money/profit) in large through the processes that Mitchell outlined. If we want to really talk about sustainability, it is essential that we do not see sustainability as merely another means for Value, but as part of our recovered values. 

Marten (686321)

Mah 644393

 Breakpoint: A Counter-History Of Progress

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Breakpoint-Counter-History-Progress-Jaques-Bonnaff%C3%A9/dp/B0896V3SNM/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?dchild=1&keywords=Breakpoint%3A+A+Counter-History+Of+Progress&qid=1611238802&sr=8-1-fkmr0

During the second world war the American usage of oil had to be reduced, therefore solar houses were developed. ("[...] the home building industry languished under a general embargo on private use of scarce raw materials.")At the MIT, in 1948, Maria Telkes developed the Solar House which had a self-sustaining energy usage of 75%. 

Sadly the States and the world missed the opportunity to develop the use of solar energy further and went back to coal electricity. 

Maria Telkes (Solar Houses)

http://architectuul.com/architecture/dover-sun-house

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1ria_Telkes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levittown,_New_York

Two other interesting links are:

Into Eternity (documentary)

“It follows the construction of the Onkalo waste repository at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant on the island of Olkiluoto, Finland.”

Interesting in terms of long-term thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoyKe-HxmFk&ab_channel=Dogwoof

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrGP87XeJjY&ab_channel=PedroG%C3%B3mez

and

-Mapping the World (Geopolitics)

Plastic Planet

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/091146-011-A/plastic-planet/

https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2020-01/Plastic%20Atlas%202019%202nd%20Edition.pdf?dimension1=ds_plastikatlas

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/RC-014036/mapping-the-world/

Anna, 675638