How is the oil extractive industry affecting the livelihoods of women in the Niger Delta? This study explores the nature of the oil extractive industry in Nigeria and its impact on the livelihoods of women. The paper further focuses on the role of civil society in reconciling the interest of the oil industry and local economy of women in the Niger Delta. Relying on primary and secondary data as well as feminist theories, the study examines the case of Ijaw, Ogbia and Ogoni women, who have traditionally relied on fishing and farming as major means of income. The paper argues that women are the most affected by the oil industry through frequent spilling of crude oil in creeks, rivers, swamps and farmlands, where their sources of income is derived from. In addition, the civil society with women as active participants has only achieved little in terms of social justice.
AbstractThis paper analyzes the transformations induced by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the extractive sector, through an ethnographic study of villages neighboring an oil-drilling site in the Peruvian Amazon. It examines the materialization of a specific CSR device—the communal enterprise—which involves the majority of village members in the extractive industry as workers, owners, and managers of a subcontractor that provides services to the oil company. The paper highlights the importance of work and socialization to assess the transformative power of this original CSR device. After an opening section on how to study extractive governmentality "at work," the paper presents a genealogy of the communal enterprise. It then examines how communal enterprises tend to transform indigenous inhabitants into workers and entrepreneurs and thereby impact the everyday organization of the entire community. By examining the ways residents adopt these social technologies, the paper shows how the partial normalization of individual bodies and collective organization induced by CSR technologies is an ambivalent mix resulting from a process of mutual appropriation between the industrial milieu and the villages. In doing so, it contributes to governmentality studies related to extractive capitalism, corporate strategies for disciplining dissent, and the social transformations they generate locally.Cet article analyse les transformations induites par la Responsabilité sociétale des entreprises (RSE) dans le secteur de l'extraction par le biais d'une étude ethnographique des villages voisins d'un site de forage pétrolier d'Amazonie péruvienne. Il examine la matérialisation d'un dispositif de RSE spécifique : une entreprise communautaire qui implique la majorité des villageois dans l'industrie de l'extraction en tant que travailleurs, propriétaires et gérants d'un sous-traitant fournissant des services à la compagnie pétrolière. Cet article souligne l'importance du travail et de la socialisation pour évaluer le pouvoir de transformation de ce dispositif de RSE original. Après une section introductive portant sur la façon d'étudier la gouvernementalité de l'extraction « au travail », cet article présente une généalogie de l'entreprise communautaire. Il examine ensuite la manière dont les entreprises communautaires tendent à transformer les habitants indigènes en travailleurs et en entrepreneurs et ainsi à impacter l'organisation quotidienne de l'ensemble de la communauté. Cet article montre en quoi la normalisation partielle des corps individuels et de l'organisation collective induite par les techniques de RSE est un mélange ambivalent résultant d'un processus d'appropriation mutuelle entre le milieu industriel et les villages en examinant la façon dont les habitants adoptent ces techniques sociales. Ce faisant, il contribue aux études de gouvernementalité liées au capitalisme de l'extraction, aux stratégies mises en œuvre par les entreprises pour discipliner la dissidence et aux transformations sociales qu'elles génèrent localement.En este artículo se analizan las transformaciones impulsadas por la responsabilidad social corporativa (RSC) en el sector de la extracción mediante un estudio etnográfico de las aldeas que se encuentran cerca de un sitio de extracción de petróleo en la Amazonía peruana. También se examina la materialización de un método específico de RSC, la empresa comunal, en la que la mayoría de los miembros de la aldea participan en la industria como trabajadores, propietarios y administradores de un subcontratista que presta servicios a la compañía petrolera. Además, se destaca la importancia del trabajo y la socialización para evaluar el poder de transformación de este método original de RSC. Después de la primera sección, donde se explica cómo estudiar la gobernabilidad extractiva ``en el trabajo'', en el artículo se presenta una genealogía de la empresa comunal. En esta se explora la forma en la que las empresas comunales suelen transformar a los habitantes autóctonos en trabajadores y emprendedores y, por lo tanto, modifican la organización establecida de toda la comunidad. Al analizar las formas en las que los residentes adoptan estas tecnologías sociales, en el artículo se muestra cómo la normalización parcial de los cuerpos individuales y de la organización colectiva producida por las tecnologías de RSC es una mezcla ambivalente que se produce como consecuencia de un proceso de apropiación mutua entre el entorno industrial y las aldeas. Este análisis contribuye a los estudios de gobernabilidad relacionados con el capitalismo extractivo, las estrategias corporativas para disciplinar la disidencia y las transformaciones sociales que generan a nivel local.
AbstractOil and natural gas activity has grown dramatically over the last decade around the United States because, in part, of increased use of unconventional technologies like hydraulic fracturing. Social scientists have examined the broad array of impacts of this growth to communities disproportionately impacted by activity. This paper contributes to that work by using survey and qualitative interviews to examine the experiences of Coloradans with harm created by oil and gas activity when they live adjacent to production or extraction sites. Using a green criminological and critical criminological framing, our findings illuminate that Coloradans in these samples experienced persistent and patterned harm from oil and gas activity to which they lived proximate. Additionally—paralleling criminological literature on street crime—our findings indicate that official state records on harm prevalence is likely inaccurate and that, instead, a "dark figure" of harm exists. This results because of underreporting of harm by those who experience it which occurs in part, at least for those in our sample, because of a lack of trust or sense of fairness in the regulatory process.
In this article extraction economies in less developed countries are compared to extraction economies in developed countries—to the Houston, Texas, and Aberdeen, Scotland, petroleum regions. The following questions are addressed: (1) What are the differences in Houston's and Aberdeen's development as petroleum regions? (2) How has their extractive development differed from that in less developed countries? (3) What is the relationship of early layers of development to later extractive investments? (4) How have capital timing and scale shaped Houston's and Aberdeen's development as urban regions? The historical timing of oil discoveries greatly affects the way oil capital builds up and exfoliates relationally in urban regions.
Perhaps it should not be surprising that sex crimes, the sex trade and anti-woman violence, have become major and predictable by-products of oil, gas and mining extraction operations. After all, mining and drilling camps attract hundreds, even thousands of mostly male workers, typically housed in makeshift 'man camps'. It is a global epidemic. This article looks at the market trends among investors who look at social performance as well as financial performance. It includes a case study on the difference in financial performance between the oil, gas and mining companies that uphold Indigenous peoples' rights and those companies that do not. The results indicate that for the extractive industry and its investors, doing what is right and doing what pays are one and the same when it comes to Indigenous peoples' rights. This article proposes that it would be the same for women's rights and that as governments increasingly prove incapable or unwilling to protect women, we need to turn to the market and make our voices heard. What is needed are the metrics and analytical tools for assessing the impact and financial risks a company can incur, when it fails to recognize women's rights.
The Concluding Statement from an October 2012 Global Seminar on the Role of Parliaments and Extractive Industries points to steps Parliaments can take to ensure that the development of mineral, oil and gas resources is a benefit rather than a curse for their societies. Parliamentarians from selected resource-rich Commonwealth jurisdictions shared experiences with experts from international organizations to identify problems and solutions. Adapted from the source document.
AbstractThe issue of economic growth and human development has been a central concern in the oil and gas sector of Nigeria's extractive industry, and this has featured prominently in the agitations and generalized restiveness in the Niger Delta, the oil‐producing region. While many studies have focused on these problems, policies aimed at confronting them have not received much broad attention. This article bridges this research gap by holistically focusing on the solution to the problem. In doing this, the article examines the policies during the Obasanjo administration from 1999 to 2007 in order to critically assess the efficacy or inefficiency of the policies in reversing the general problem now known as the "resource curse," and to offer a better understanding of the deeper political, social, and economic issues that drive outcomes. The article finds that while significant efforts were made to avoid the boom and bust cycle of oil and lower volatility by de‐linking public expenditure from oil revenue through the "oil‐price‐based fiscal rule," generally, progress in this area was not matched by improvement in the other areas examined by this study, notably peace and safety of lives and oil/gas installations, the development of the oil‐producing region, environmental security and sustainability, and the transparent and accountable use of oil/gas revenues.
