Afterlives of Oil: Leadership of Repair in Fluid Landscapes
Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-9847-1745
Abstract / Resumen / Resumo
This paper chronicles the emergence of a new generation of indigenous leaders in the oil-producing region of northeastern Ecuador. Over the span of almost half a century, oil exploitation and toxic waste has come to mark the landscape, everyday lives and political relations among the Siekopai people. A new generation of leaders has tacitly accepted that they will not see monetary reparations, but have to make do in a transformed landscape of leaky substances. They are entangled in oil’s material afterlife, and I show how new political subjectivities arise with experiences of living with destruction to the best of their abilities. They take inspiration from shamanic practices of repair and controlled transformation to ensure existential continuity and recompose relations between forests, bodies and territories.
Recommended Citation
Krøijer, Stine
(2024)
"Afterlives of Oil: Leadership of Repair in Fluid Landscapes,"
Journal of Latin American Geography
23(3): 220-243.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2024.a948102
Available at:
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/15/article/948102