1st Edition

Assembling Petroleum Production and Climate Change in Ecuador and Norway

By Elisabeth Marta Tómmerbakk Copyright 2022
    236 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    236 Pages 6 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book addresses some of the controversies and uncertainties associated with reducing the extensive exploitation of fossil fuels due to their role in global warming.

    Elisabeth Marta Tómmerbakk explores why a transition towards a post-carbon society is so difficult to accomplish by examining how the relationship between petroleum production and climate change is politically framed and negotiated in contested cases. This question is approached through a process-oriented comparative case study of Lofoten, located in the Norwegian Sea above the Arctic Circle, and Yasuní-ITT (Ishpingo, Tambococha, and Tiputini) located in the Ecuadorian Amazon: regions that both belong to oil-exporting countries with highly oil-dependent economies. Tómmerbakk draws on rich empirical data that includes qualitative interviews with subjects in both countries and applies an Actor-Network Theory framework to show that oil and climate are intricately entangled in knowledge and policy practices. Overall, Assembling Petroleum Production and Climate Change in Ecuador and Norway provides an in-depth examination of how climate science and petroleum extraction are negotiated, adapted, assembled, and coordinated with other national policies and political aims.

    This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of petroleum production, climate change, environmental policy, and environmental sociology.

    1. Introduction

    2. Norwegian oil as a provider of safety and/or (future) insecurity

    3. Translating Lofoten

    4. The contested oil of the Ecuadorian Amazon

    5. Becoming Yasuní-ITT: A process of assembling and reassembling

    6. Lofoten and Yasuní-ITT: Comparing interfering networks

    7. Enactments between presence and absence: A conclusion

    Biography

    Elisabeth Marta Tómmerbakk is an Associate Professor at the University of Cuenca, Ecuador. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Nord University, Norway, and her research interests include petroleum conflicts, climate policies and mitigation mechanisms, knowledge production and knowledge systems, territorializations, and socio-material practices.