governing relations between people and things: citizenship, territory, and the political economy of...

Political Geography 27 (2008) 456e477www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo

Governing relations between people and things:Citizenship, territory, and the political economy

of petroleum in Ecuador

Gabriela Valdivia a,b,*

a School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USAb Department of Geography, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Abstract

Ecuador is the fifth largest producer of petroleum in Latin America. Petroleum has brought prosperityto many Ecuadorians, effectively becoming the nation’s most important natural resource. It also hasinspired intense political mobilizations. While the best known of these are led by Amazonian indigenouspeoples, petroleum has also generated other important but not as well-recognized mobilizations. Thispaper focuses on the political mobilization of Amazonian agricultural settlers and petroleum workers inrelation to petroleum. While these actors do not share common livelihood or cultural struggles, thediscourses that frame their mobilizations in relation to petroleum have common elements. Their dissatis-faction with the political economy of petroleum in the 1990s and 2000s, for example, generated highprofile protests and civil unrest that centered not on stopping production, but on demanding a more‘responsible management’ of petroleum by the state. The paper brings together political economy,mechanisms of subject formation, and the material qualities of petroleum to explore how petroleumproduction in Ecuador has shaped common views on citizenship among these actors that center on petro-leum as a site of regulation of social life.� 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Citizenship; Governmentality; Petroleum; Political mobilization; Amazon-Ecuador

* Department of Geography, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Saunders Hall, Campus Box 3220, Chapel

Hill, NC 27599-3220, USA. Tel.: þ1 919 962 3870; fax: þ1 919 962 1537.

E-mail address: [email protected]

0962-6298/$ - see front matter � 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2008.03.007

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo

457G. Valdivia / Political Geography 27 (2008) 456e477

Ecuador is the fifth largest producer of petroleum in Latin America. Since the discovery of largeoilfields in its Amazon region in 1967, petroleum has brought prosperity to many Ecuadorians. It isalso at the center of intense political mobilizations. While the best known are led by Amazonian peo-ples denouncing injustices associated with petroleum production (cf. Sawyer, 2004), petroleum hasalso generated other important but not as well-recognized mobilizations. Since the 1980s, mestizosettlers in the Amazon have staged strikes, blockaded roads, and obstructed access to pipelines toprotest against the privatization of national petroleum facilities. Privatization is perceived as theperpetuation of a political economy that provides revenues to the rich at the expense of Amazonianinhabitants (Bocco, 1987; El Comercio, 2006). In the mid-2000s, protests escalated in the two mostimportant oil-producing provinces, Sucumbıos and Orellana. These protests, framed by claims of‘‘petroleum belongs to all Ecuadorians,’’ at times paralyzed enough petroleum activities to haltproduction (BBC News, 2005).

Employees of the national petroleum company, Petroecuador, use similar protests to contestpetroleum privatization. Since the 1970s, national petroleum workers have protested against‘‘economically unfavorable’’ agreements that seek to privatize the national industry (Cabezas,1972; Gordillo, 2003). Their goal is to ‘‘defend petroleum,’’ to highlight ‘‘irresponsible’’ and ‘‘un-patriotic’’ management strategies that take away resources from the Ecuadorian people to servea few (Benıtez, 2006). Protests against the potential privatization of Petroecuador escalated in the1990s and 2000s, depicting the Ecuadorian state as ‘‘vendiendo los recursos del pueblo’’ (‘‘sellingoff the people’s resources’’) (Interview, August 30, 2003). In 2003, several Petroecuador operatorswent on strike to protest plans for increased involvement of private companies in the country’s oilsector, causing a temporary reduction in flows through Ecuador’s main pipeline, SOTE (Sistemade Oleoducto Transecuatoriano, Trans-Ecuadorian Petroleum Transportation System).

This paper examines the conditions under which petroleum governance in Ecuador hasproduced political mobilizations among Amazonian settlers and petroleum workers. While thesetwo actors do not share common livelihood or cultural struggles, the political economy of the1990s and 2000s generated similar responses among them in relation to petroleum. Both have en-gaged a series of civil unrest practices that articulate a view on citizenship that demands greater‘responsible management’ of petroleum by the state. While the management of resources of‘‘national importance’’ is understood as the sovereignty of the state, these mobilizations suggestthat challenging state sovereignty over petroleum is a ‘strategy from below’ to publicly assert therights and obligations of citizens. The goal of Amazonian settlers and national petroleum workersis not to stop petroleum exploitationda claim traditionally articulated by Amazonian indigenouspeoplesdbut to transform the mechanisms through which this resource serves the Ecuadoriancollective. I explore the politicoeeconomic configurations through which Amazonian residentsand petroleum workers articulate petroleum and citizenshipdpetro-citizenshipdas a way toshape the terms of petroleum governance. I argue that petro-citizenship is grounded in an under-standing of petroleum as a sort of territoryda physical body with defined properties and boundar-iesdthat shapes not only people’s belonging within the boundaries of the nation, but also politicalidentities through which to claim rights to the benefits associated with national membership.

The paper is organized as follows. First, I draw on governmentality to operationalize the con-cept of petro-citizenship. Then, I review the rationalities of petroleum governance in Ecuador, fo-cusing on how petroleum exploitation has shaped a resourcehood imaginary that framesrelationships among state, transnational companies, petroleum workers, and Amazonian resi-dents. Next, I examine how appropriating and contesting aspects of petroleum production havebecome strategies of citizenship articulation among Amazonian residents and Petroecuadorworkers. This section draws on visits to the province of Sucumbıos between 1998 and 2003,

458 G. Valdivia / Political Geography 27 (2008) 456e477

newspaper archival research, conversations with petroleum activists and petroleum workers in2001, 2003, and 2007, and participant observation in petroleum-related marches in Quito, in2003.1 The subsequent section describes how petroleum’s materiality is engaged to contest itsgovernance.2 I conclude with a discussion on the ways in which nation-building, publicdemonstrations of citizenship, and materiality intersect to shape petroleum governmentality.

The government of petroleum: sovereignty, citizenship, and the subterranean territory

Petroleum-related protests among Amazonian settlers and petroleum workers are oftenexplained as expressions of concern over the management of petroleum and its revenue distri-bution by the Ecuadorian government. Hence, they are about how petroleum mediates therelationship between the state and its citizens. Governmentality (Foucault, 2005), which bringsattention to the ways in which the government of humans in relation to things shapes ways ofenvisioning nation-building and modernity (Li, 2007; Moore, 2005; Rose, 1999), offers a usefulguideline for understanding petroleum governance in Ecuador. Governmentality is concernedwith the milieu of government (Foucault, 2005), the cultural, environmental, economic, andgeographic conditions through which humans conduct their lives. It brings attention to therole of a host of historically contingent technologies of calculation and ruledinstitutions, pro-cedures, analyses, and reflectionsdin regulating relationships through which the administrationof life takes place. Governmentality is about the calculations, ethics, and politico-economicprojects that regulate how life ought to be conducted (cf. Agrawal, 2005; Dean, 1999; Guthman& DuPuis, 2006; Mitchell, 2006; Stoler, 1995).

Broadly, governmentality highlights how modern forms of rule are shaped by interacting formsof powerdsovereignty, discipline, and governmentdthat together govern the relationshipbetween people and things (Foucault, 2005). Sovereign power exercises authority over subjectsliving within a territory in order to secure control over how such territory functions (cf. Delaney,2005). Discipline refers to mechanisms of regulation that make individuals conform to rules thatdirect their actions and shape awareness of their position in relation to the sovereign and its ter-ritory (e.g., constitutions and laws). These mechanisms, and the administrative apparatus associ-ated with them, manage bodies in space (and their forces and capacities) to secure the politicaleconomy of rule. Government entails practices, techniques, and rationalities that together attemptto shape the behaviors (conduct) of others or oneself, in order to secure a particular end in mind(Dean, 1999). The goal of government is to improve the economy of life by intervening in therelationships between people, territory, and wealth (Foucault, 2005).

I focus specifically on the ways that petro-citizenship has become a way of understandinghow life ought to be conducted in Ecuador. Citizenship is a geographical concept that mediatesbetween self and society, private and public, and can be leveraged in everyday life to effectinclusion and exclusion in various political communities (Kurtz & Hankins, 2005). Citizenshipbrings together questions about an individual’s or group’s position in relation to an overarchingpolitical bodydand its territorydwith socio-cultural questions about who is accepted as a wor-thy, valuable, and responsible member of such political body (Painter & Philo, 1995). It

1 Due to persecution against people that publicly challenge petroleum privatization policies and IRB regulations that

focus on the protection of research subjects such as workers, I do not give names of activists (unless they have published

their struggles) in order to protect their identities.2 I rely on the vocabulary of chemistry and geology to describe petroleum’s material variation, with the caution that

the variations we ‘see’ in the world of ‘things’ is limited to the conceptual tools of modern science.


involves disciplinary regulation (the rights and obligations that direct ‘good’ and ‘bad’ citizenbehavior) as well as practices of subject formation through which individuals see themselvesand others as citizens.

It is in the intersection of these political rationalities of belonging and mechanisms ofsubject formation that citizenship articulates with petroleum in Ecuador, shaping the relation-ship between those governing (state institutions) and those governed (citizens). Citizensagainst the privatization of oil fields, for example, see privatization as a threat to their liveli-hoods (and the possibility to improve these) and themselves as members of the nation’spolitical community negatively affected by the state’s ‘retreat’ from petroleum management.Their actionsdstrikes, occupation of facilities, turning off equipmentdare public expressionsof concern against ‘‘unpatriotic’’ or ‘‘confused’’ management of the revenue captured frompetroleum that don’t benefit the Ecuadorian people (Interview, November 24, 2007).

Contestations against policies that regulate petroleum point to how governed subjects alsoshape rationalities and technologies that discipline citizen life (Luke, 1996; Perreault, 2006; Scott,1998; Sinnerbrink, 2005).3 Recognizing the moments in which the state’s sovereignty over petro-leum is challenged allows the possibility to see how both modern states and governed subjects co-determine each other’s existence and capacities within the context of the nation (cf. Li, 2007).Contesting the rationalities of petroleum managementd‘‘the maximum guarantee of develop-ment and well-being for the people’’ (Jarrın Ampudia, 2005)dis about defending values and be-liefs about how life should be conducted in matters of the ‘welfare of the people’ within thesovereign’s territory. Thus, the rationalities that underpin petroleum governance are exercisedboth through the practices of those governing and through those of actors who self-regulate anddefine their participation as citizens of the petroleum economy.

The claims of Amazonian residents and petroleum workers also suggest that petroleum has be-come a ‘thing’ through which actors represent and enforce the conduct of government. Petroleum,in this sense, is a physical body that serves as the base of identification and belonging and throughwhich projects of subject identitydor territorialitiesdare produced (cf. Bobrow-Strain, 2007).While governmentality acknowledges that the relationship between ‘humans and things’ or ‘pop-ulation and territory’ is important for understanding the art of governing (Foucault, 2005), it sayslittle about how the qualities of the objects through which governance takes place matter (Braun,2000; Elden, 2007). Material aspects of nature can shape, encourage, or constrain social actionwithin specific historical and geographical circumstances, setting obstacles, opportunities and sur-prises in processes of resource appropriation and governance (Bakker & Bridge, 2006; Benton,1989; Bridge & Smith, 2003; Prudham, 2005; Robertson, 2006). From biological properties andprocesses (Prudham, 2003; Sneddon, 2007) to physical properties that shape conditions of transportand distribution (Bakker, 2002; Bridge, 2004), the material aspects of natural resources influenceeconomic and political relations of production. In the case of Ecuador, the technologies of petro-leum production (pipelines and pumping stations) that Amazonian residents and petroleum workersoccupied or stopped operating themselves are shaped by petroleum’s material properties and be-havior (e.g., viscosity and API gravity). They are ‘‘actants’’ (Latour, 1993); non-human thingsand processes that form hybrids with the consciousness of humans in ways that give shape to po-litical mobilizations that challenge the terms of governance (cf. Mitchell, 2002). The material qual-ities of petroleumdand the calculations through which they become meaningfuldthus play a rolein the territorialization of petro-citizenship. Not only do they shape the locations where protests

3 Luke (1996) refers to these contestation as ‘‘contragovernmentalities;’’ attempts to destabilize the associations

among state, population, and political rationalities that discipline the behaviors of individuals and collectives.


disrupt technologies of production, but also the terms under which protests become intelligible asacts of citizenship. Petroleum has become the body through which state and citizen meet, contest,and legitimize each other.

Study, explore, and exploit it: the political rationalities of petroleumgovernance in Ecuador

It is not possible to study petro-citizenship without an analysis of the rationalities andtechnologies through which territory and population are governed. Petroleum entered theeconomic and political rationalities of the Ecuadorian state through the language and practicesof geology, which infuse ‘underground nature’ with possibilities for expanding new frontiersfor global capital (cf. Braun, 2000). As petroleum’s economic importance increased throughoutthe early 20th century, petroleum companies sought to increase and secure new oil supplies.Some of these early investments took place in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where geologic formationsbode well for the possibility of petroleum production (Shanmugam, Poffenberger, & Alava, 2000).

Aware of foreign interests and the potential of the Amazon, the Ecuadorian governmentopened large exploration areas to petroleum companiesdwhat critics have called entreguismo(selling out the country’s interests)din an effort to maximize investment. Contract termslargely involved concessionary renting or leasing with few constraints for foreign companies,which was seen by state officers as a way of enhancing the state’s wealth and prosperity,and thereby, the well-being of citizens. Exploration efforts met non-commercial crudes, remoteand difficult operating conditions, and unsuccessful drilling, however, which forced some oilcompanies to relinquish concessions in 1948 (Tschopp, 1953).

It wasn’t until 1963 that petroleum interest revived, when a potentially large oil field in theneighboring Putumayo region in Colombia was discovered. Texas Petroleum and Gulf, whichtogether had made the discovery, soon after requested a concession in Ecuador, across theborder from the Putumayo holdings, with the hopes to strike more deposits (Barrows, 1967).The Ecuadorian government promptly followed negotiations that favored a contract withTexacoeGulf. Knowledge of commercial findings on the Colombian side, along with entre-guismo, rent seeking as a source of income, and an incipient national petroleum industry facil-itated terms that favored foreign control over petroleum (Martz, 1986). On April 8, 1967,TexacoeGulf completed a producing well 60 km south of the Colombian finding and discov-ered the first of many large fields currently in production in the northern Amazon.4 Ecuador wassoon after inundated with requests from multinational companies to develop concessionsthroughout the region. By 1970, about 30 concessions were granted, encompassing about 10million hectares and attracting multiple companies that invested in exploration and production(Fontaine, 2003). By 1972, the SOTE was built to transport petroleum for export and refining,a 503-km pipeline that crosses the country from the Amazon to the Pacific coast (see Fig. 1).

Claiming sovereignty through the government of the subterranean territory

‘‘Petroleum is. inalienable Patrimony of the State as established by the Constitution andbelongs to thirteen million Ecuadorians, who are its legitimate owners. The government is

4 Explorations in the southern Amazon were not as successful. Geologic processes contribute to this geographic var-

iation in the location and quality of petroleum (Dashwood & Abbotts, 1990; Feninger, 1975) and why former explora-

tions in the south reported incipient or non-commercial findings (Tschopp, 1953).

Quito

Lago Agrio

0 70 140 210 28035

Kilometers

COLOMBIA

PERU

PACIFIC

OCEAN

Sucumbios

OrellanaLegend

SOTE

Concession blocks

Provincial boundaries

N

Fig. 1. Location of petroleum exploration blocks and SOTE pipeline in Ecuador.


simply the administrator of the resource, and is obligated to provide an honest administration tothose owners, who are the present and future generations.’’ (Gustavo Jarrın Ampudia, 2005,former Minister of Natural and Energy Resources).

Specific politicoeeconomic and cultural projects crystallized Ecuador as a ‘‘petro-state’’(Karl, 1997) and petroleum as the natural resource to be governed. Initially, Ecuador invited


foreign capital to invest in petroleum exploration under flexible business conditions and withaccess to large territorial concessions. The state focused on deriving rents from foreign extrac-tion, hoping more reserves could be identified. These conditions of exploitation were soonchallenged by nationalist sectors that believed that the existing political economy of petroleumdid not serve national interests. In 1971, a military coup nationalized all subsurface elements aspatrimony of the state, in order to better control rents drawn from foreign investors (Little,1992). Within the broader regional context, Ecuador’s political move made sense; the nation-alization of petroleum resources had been a prevalent political strategy among Latin Americanoil-producing countries in the mid-20th century, focused on import substitution industrializa-tion and economic sovereignty (Coronil, 1997; Fontaine, 2003).

The nationalist government implemented a broad politicaleeconomic program, the Filosofıay Plan de Accion del Gobierno Revolucionario y Nacionalista del Ecuador (Philosophy andAction Plan of the Ecuadorian Revolutionary and Nationalist Government), which createdthe first national institutions and laws to establish control over natural resource managementto serve the interests of the people (Carriere, 2001). In addition, contractual terms with petro-leum companies were reviewed, the Hydrocarbon Law implemented (for the protection ofsocial, economic, and natural capital), the Ecuadorian Petroleum State Corporation (CEPE)created, and practices of allowing large concessions to private companies abandoned. Thesewere all technologies implemented to define a consciousness of sovereignty based on thegovernment of petroleum, so that ‘‘hydrocarbon’s strategic and critical elements.come toconstitute a determining factor in the very existence of the State’’ (Gustavo Jarrın, Ministerof Natural Resources and Tourism, 1974, quoted in Martz, 1986: 103). As a result, a numberof foreign concessions were taken back by the state, and CEPEdwhich became Petroecuadorin 1989drenegotiated contracts to acquire rights and shares in areas of high production(specifically, the high-yielding area exploited by TexacoeGulf).

Petroleum production in the 1970s generated specific politicaleeconomic relations thatshaped citizenesubject formation. According to the Law of Hydrocarbons, the state becamethe manager of petroleum as a public resource that would finance development for the nation’spopulation (Cabezas, 1972).5 This articulation of nature and capital shaped an ‘‘oil mentality’’that came to permeate understandings of the Ecuadorian state, its population, and its subterra-nean territory, petroleum (Brogan, 1984). The state and its citizens entered a ‘‘rentist compro-mise’’ (cf. Coronil, 1998) that framed the state as the authority responsible for financing publicprojects and produced the effect of a ‘caring’ state responsible for its population’s well-beingda perspective present in the protests of Amazonian settlers and petroleum workers inthe 1990s and 2000s. In this understanding of the relationship between sovereign and subjects,the improvement of modern society depends on the ground rent captured from the state’sunderground territory, petroleum. Thus, rules that regulate revenue distribution and the institu-tions in charge of managing these are disciplinary techniques that regulate the conduct ofmodern Ecuadorian society. In this context, CEPE became the most important public institu-tion, as it managed the distribution and investment of petroleum revenues. Revenues wereused to encourage agro-exports and import-substituting industries, investment in commercialreal estate, and rapid urbanization (Conaghan, Malloy, & Abugattas, 1990; Gerlach, 2003).The new economy also provided costly subsidy schemes for the masses and prompteda dramatic increase in income per capita and overall consumption power. All of these factors

5 Over the last 30 years, petroleum has made up 14.2% of the Ecuadorian GDP, including 41.2% of overall exports

and 40.6% of the state budget (Jimenez & Rulliere, 2003).


generated a general feeling of economic progress among Ecuador’s rapidly growing urbanpopulation (Brogan, 1984; Carriere, 2001).

Volatile world petroleum prices in the 1980s shifted the terms of the new political economyof petroleum, however, setting up the conditions for a piecemeal restructuring of the nationalpetroleum industry. The government approached lending institutions such as the WorldBank, International Monetary Fund, and Inter American Development Bank for loans tofund exploration and development that would increase petroleum production, in an effort toincrease revenue. Throughout the 1980s, Ecuador experienced a vicious cycle of inflationand recession plagued by domestic deficits and a growing foreign debt. As petroleum pricescontinued to drop worldwide, the Ecuadorian government implemented structural adjustmentmeasures to control its unraveling economy. Throughout this time period, international lendinginstitutions specifically pushed for the deregulation and privatization of the petroleum industryto allow the re-negotiation of Ecuador’s international debt (Corbo, 1992).

Meanwhile, public statements by state officials construed neoliberal re-structuring of thenational petroleum industry as the rational politicaleeconomic path towards greater well-beingfor the nation (Brogan, 1984). One of the most important aid conditions set by lending organi-zations was to encourage a favorable environment for foreign investment in petroleum (Hey &Klak, 1999). The re-structuring and division of CEPEdthe first and most important nationalcompanydwas central to the politico-economic agenda of the late 1980s. CEPEdwhich untilthen had been fiscally responsible for a number of modernization projects and had significantinfluence on the oil policy-making processdwas under scrutiny on the grounds that it was aninefficient and corrupt enterprise (Brogan, 1984). Reorganizing the company into Petroecuador,a state company divided into affiliated but independent enterprises that would tackle distinctaspects of petroleum production (e.g., exploration, production of derivatives, domestic distribu-tion), was proposed as a mechanism to increase efficiency in national production throughspecialization.6

Aside from the compartmentalization of CEPE, ‘opening’ the national petroleum industryto foreign investors also became a mechanism through which to introduce a new way ofgoverning petroleum’s production. Foreign investment was rationalized as the best way toupgrade petroleum technologies and expand infrastructure, increase production, and in-crease economic growth, in other words, ‘‘indispensable for national development’’ (ReneeBucaram, ex-director of the national subsidiary of Texaco, 1997, quoted in Fontaine, 2003:107). Neoliberal rationalities continued to govern the petroleum industry during the 1990sand 2000s, at some points pushing for privatization of national fields operated by Petroecua-dor, opening marginal fields for enhanced recovery programs by foreign companies, and atothers promoting joint-venture production partnerships. One of the most contentious of suchpartnership outcomes was the OCP (Oleoducto de Crudo Pesado, or Heavy-Crude Pipeline),built in 2003 as an exclusively heavy-crude pipeline meant to increase the pace of extractionby foreign companies.7

6 The ‘breakdown’ of CEPE has also been referred to as an attempt to reduce and control the power of a 3500-strong

union vocal against the role of foreign companies in Ecuador’s oil sector (Interview with Petroecuador worker, Novem-

ber 24, 2007). In this sense, the governmentalization of CEPE is part and parcel of the conditions of possibility for

petro-citizenship, as it was interpreted as an attempt to weaken the role of the company and its workers in the govern-

ment of national resources.7 A consortium of transnational companies, comprised of Alberta Energy Co Ltd, Agip Petroleum, Kerr-McGee

Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp., Repsol-YPF, and the construction firm Techint and Perez Companc, gave the finan-

cial and technological backing for its construction and maintenance.


The articulation of petro-citizenship: citizens ‘in defense of national sovereignty’

Throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Amazonian settlers and Petroecuador workershave publicly stated their opposition to structural adjustment programs in the national petro-leum industry described above. Their position is framed as one of responsibility towards thosewho live within the national territory and are subjects of the nation-state (Narvaez, Galarza,Villavicencio, & Ortiz, 1996) and opposition to those who attempt to capture oil revenues atthe expense of the nation and local populations. Their articulation of petro-citizenship canbe best understood by examining the historical conditions that have shaped how these actorssee themselves in relation to petroleum and its government as a national resource.

From agricultural to petroleum colonization: ‘‘We too, are Ecuador’’

Using roads built by foreign petroleum companies, land-poor mestizos from the coast andhighlands entered the Amazon through state-encouraged agrarian colonization schemes thatopened up the possibility of securing land ownership in the Amazon (Little, 1992). Theseprograms initially served as a strategy to structure Amazonian spacedthe undeveloped frontierof the nation-state until the 1960sdas territory to be occupied and made productive in the nameof state security. The development of the region was (and continues to be) seen by the state ascrucial for gaining modern status in the global arena (Sawyer, 2004). Through mechanisms thatsupported homesteading and agricultural expansion (e.g., the creation of land allocation andregistration offices, policies that define ‘productive uses’ of land, and selective micro-financing)mestizo settlers laid claims over land to build livelihoods, as well as ensured Ecuadorianpresence in the Amazon (Pichon, 1997). Many settlers hoped their proximity to petroleumextraction sites would encourage local economic development. Others were lured by thepromises of riches associated with petroleum jobs and the possibility of settling on land thathad the potential for petroleum (Little, 1992). Once settlement got under way, however, therole of petroleum in local social and economic reproduction was obscured by routine,administrative technologies of agrarian reform (e.g., laws that require the demarcation andlegalization of land to establish ownership) that prioritized agrarian productivity as the mostsignificant way of establishing the recognition of rights.

The political climate in the Amazon, specially the oil-producing provinces of Sucumbıosand Orellana, has changed in the past decade, becoming more focused on the unmet expecta-tions of progress that accompanied the establishment of the petroleum industry. This is partlythe effect of greater political savvy in the region, greater economic and social integration, andthe participation of local political leaders in national politics. Hence, claims that petroleum hasnot provided adequate social and economic investment for Amazonian peoples (despitepromises of greater well-being for all) now capture greater national attention than they diddecades ago (Associated Press, 2007; El Comercio, 2006). As a result, petroleum has re-surfaced as a central concern to secure livelihoods in the Amazon, and state institutions andtransnational petroleum companies as the actors to account for petroleum’s unmet expectations.

One of the main issues that re-ignited public demonstrations against the political economy ofpetroleum among Amazonian residents was the privatization of oil facilities in the early 2000s.While proposals to restructure the national industry had been considered throughout the 1990s,the ideological alignment of President Lucio Gutierrez with neoliberal policies made privatiza-tion seem more like a reality in 2003. Amazonian residents saw privatization as a way ofchanneling capital towards transnational companies and away from the region. As one


petroleum activist described: ‘‘pipelines only take, they don’t bring back’’ (Villavicencio,2006). Opening national fields and operations to private companies was also interpreted as di-minishing the social responsibilities of the Ecuadorian state in areas such as the northern Am-azon, where attention to local needs has been historically minimal and the environmentalexcesses of private companies well-documented (San Sebastian & Hurtig, 2004; Zaidi, 1994).

Local opinions on the presence of transnational companies are varied, however, rangingfrom a view that transnationals must leave (‘‘they don’t care about people’’) to requestingthat, if transnationals are to remain, they should be accountable for local improvement. Inthe latter case, companies are expected to take over the role of the ‘caring state’ and investin local economic and social development (demonstrations of ‘care’). In an effort to securea favorable arrangement, Amazonian settlers who follow this view have staged strikes, protests,and taken over local petroleum facilities in order to publicly articulate their claimsdas petro-citizensdto greater control over the management of petroleum revenues.

The protests that took place in 2005 illustrate moments of this articulation of petro-citizenship. On the morning of August 16, 2005, residents of Sucumbıos and Orellana set upa bi-provincial strike that stopped petroleum production. Armed with knowledge of recordpetroleum prices and the participation of local political leadership, protesters closed streetsand airports, invaded pumping stations, and paralyzed petroleum-related activities. Theirgoal was to destabilize production in order to force the government to recognize their demandsfor a greater share of petroleum revenues. The occupation forced the decree of a state ofemergency that suspended constitutional rights in Orellana and Sucumbıos (El Comercio,2005a). As a response, protests escalated in Amazonian cities. Under the slogan of ‘‘we too,are Ecuador,’’ hundreds of people marched the streets of Amazonian cities protesting againstthe inappropriate management of the nation’s resources. Police and army forces were sent tocontrol the spaces of disruption, using tear gas bombs, water cannons, and mass arrests tocontrol the ‘unruly’ population and to detain people trying to take over local pumping stations(CEDHU, 2005). Soldiers were ordered to arrest mayors, local prefects, and governors support-ing the strikes, as the participation of these locally elected leaders raised the profile of localdemands (El Comercio, 2005b).

To support the strikes and protest military repression, members of women organizations inSucumbıos marched the streets of Lago Agrio (capital of Sucumbıos) with their mouths tapedshut as a symbol of their inability to speak freely as citizens. Fearing escalating violence, stateofficials agreed to discuss protesters’ demands, including calls funds to build roads, medicalcenters, and other public works in the Amazon. Protests were temporarily suspended to allowthe possibility of dialogue with state authorities. Protests have continued, however, as settlersdo not perceive significant change in government or private behavior. In February 2006, ina span of 2e3 weeks, pumping stations for the SOTE and OCPdthe country’s two mainpipelinesdwere occupied. Valves were disconnected, power turned off, and petroleum workerstaken hostage (by ‘‘activists’’ or ‘‘insurgents,’’ depending on the newspaper reporting), to forcethe national government to grant requests for socio-economic improvement (Houston Chroni-cle, 2006; The Miami Herald, 2006).

For protesters, petroleum offers ways to contest bio-political relations that regulate life in theAmazon. Protests, occupations, and demonstrations by local groups and authorities thus can beinterpreted as techniques through which governed subjects articulate petro-citizenship as a politicalidentity, with the goal to destabilize the intersections among petroleum, state, and capital circulationthat have historically marginalized Amazonian subjects. Interestingly, while resistance to statepolitical rationalities helps produce Amazonian subjects as petro-citizens, it also shapes the ways


in which government institutions represent protesters. For example, some public officials havereferred to Amazonian protests as ‘‘terrorist attacks’’ against the integrity of the nation-state.8

This language powerfully represents struggles to intervene in the political economy of petroleumas an attack on the collective national body, and hence, on the security of state rule.

Petroleum workers: a ‘‘profound tradition of struggle’’

Since its foundation in 1971, CEPE (and later on, Petroecuador) has operated as the first andmost prestigious national company in Ecuador (Gerlach, 2003), shaping understandings of re-source sovereignty among its employees. Strong labor unions, in particular, have shaped a viewof petro-responsibility towards the nation, namely FETRAPEC (Federation of Ecuadorian Petro-leum Workers) and CETAPE (Committee of Petroecuador Workers) (Interview, November 16,2007). While initially focused on securing labor rights, these have now become powerful criticsof neoliberal re-structuring. According to members of FETRAPEC, ‘‘the struggles of the unionsare not for worker’s compensation.they are political struggles.that will determine the construc-tion of a new State and economy’’ (Interview, November 24, 2007). In this understanding of po-litical mobilization for a ‘new society,’ the security of the nation (and its economy) is in the handsof petroleum workers. Today, many of the workers who formed the first unions are still active inPetroecuador, shaping views on its social purpose towards Ecuadorian citizens. Not all employeesof Petroecuador share these views, however. Unionized petroleum workers who are politically ac-tive against privatization include mostly technicians, facility operators, and manual laborers. Pro-fessionals (such as petroleum engineers) and administrative personnel have participated in someprotests, but not to the extent that refinery operators have, for example.

According to a former representative of Petroecuador’s labor union, many workers have been‘‘politically educated’’ by the experiences of belonging to a company that, since its creation, isconstantly at odds with the interests of foreign capital. Workers see entreguismo in neoliberal pe-troleum politics of deregulation and privatization of the petroleum industry, as it takes controlover the terms of production (how much petroleum is extracted and who is extracting it) awayfrom the state and places it in the hands of private companies that do not hold loyalties towardsthe Ecuadorians. Petroleum workers have protested privatization of state-owned petroleum facil-ities through a number of ‘‘symbolic acts.’’ In 1995, for example, they chained themselves toa home-made pipeline set up in one of Quito’s busiest gas stations, to protest against the privat-ization of the SOTE during the government of President Sixto Duran Ballen. The protest escalatedto a hunger strike that received significant press coverage, eventually forcing the Ecuadorian gov-ernment to shelf plans of privatization. These workers saw the state as going against its ‘‘essentialnature’’d‘‘safeguarding the practice of the Common Good’’dand against ‘‘the people’s inter-est’’ (Narvaez, Galarza, Villavicencio, & Ortiz, 1996: 24). Their protests have effectively stoppedprivatization in several occasions, an indication of their public support and power of convocationthroughout the 1990s. As a petroleum activist commented in regard to the power of political

8 Similar discursive tactics have been used around the world in order to stigmatize and silence critics, particularly,

following the September 11 attacks in the U.S. Former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (following

his ouster in 2003) and former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, in the wake of Peru’s war against the Shining

Path in the 1980s, also drew on these sort of tactics. In the case of Ecuador, reputation defamation tactics (e.g., referring

to local officers as terrorists in the mainstream media) were used to condemn the actions of locally elected represen-

tatives that supported protests. These tactics and the arrest of democratically elected local government officials (under

the pretense of terrorist behavior), however, only had the further effect of raising the profile of protests in the national

media.


mobilizations at the time: ‘‘Our pueblo grows in difficult moments; if we are able to bring thepeople together for big causes, we can win the heavens’’ (Galarza, 1996: 125).

In June 2003, the threat of privatizing Petroecuador’s oil fields prompted workers to go onstrike, temporarily crippling petroleum exports. Opposition to privatization among these workerswas conceived as ‘‘selling out national patrimony’’ and as threatening the stability of the nationalindustry (Interview, August 30, 2003). Furthermore, Petroecuador workers see privatization ofoilfields as the ‘‘plundering of resources:’’ private companies are not invested in the conservationof national resources or sustainable extraction, but in their quick exploitation for capital accumu-lation (Interview, November 24, 2007). In one of the largest protests against structural adjustmentmeasures in August 2003, petroleum workers marched the streets of Quito, joining many othersectors dissatisfied with the neoliberal policies of President Lucio Gutierrez. Representativesof CETAPE depicted privatization by using puppets symbolizing the ‘‘marriage’’ of conveniencebetween the Ecuadorian government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As theydescribed, this was ‘‘la boda del ano’’ (‘‘the wedding of the year’’), one that enriched somebut kept the majority of Ecuadorians poor (Fig. 2). Their position against neoliberal re-structuring was reflected in the slogan ‘‘El petroleo es del pueblo, no del FMI’’ (‘‘petroleumbelongs to the people, not the IMF’’), which reinforces an articulation of petroleum-territoryand citizen-population focused on the defense of national territory by the sovereign’s subjects.Many union leaders were strategically laid off as a result of protests in the 2000s, accused oftampering with the country’s economic development, some labeled as ‘terrorists’ with their livesthreatened if they continue opposing the re-structuring of Petroecuador.

Protests against the rationalities of petroleum management and the severity with which stateofficials responded to workers’ strikes underscore the dynamics of identity co-production amonggoverning and governed subjects. Among Petroecuador workers, petroleum is seen as the productof the Patria which, in conjunction with the caring/manager state, has shaped understandings ofhow petroleum ought to be managed in order to achieve the betterment of all Ecuadorians. Asa Petroecuador worker described, ‘‘these are the resources of the people.our political fight isa patriotic fight for the conservation of the nation’s resources’’ (Interview, November 24,2007). Petroecuador workers see their actions as patriotic, in defense of the very foundationsof national sovereignty. Adoption of neoliberal policies is seen as diminishing the role of the statein the conduct of petroleum management, as well as disrupting the close articulation betweensovereignty, territory (national resources), and citizens built during the foundation of the Ecua-dorian petroleum industry. The imbrication of petroleum and nation in the consciousness of Pet-roecuador workers thus conditions the possibility to stake claimsdas petro-citizensdagainstneoliberal re-structuring policies, on the grounds that sovereignty over petroleum’s exploitationis threatened by the actions of ‘‘irresponsible’’ state officials (Frente Patriotico por la SoberanıaPetrolera, 2005). Views on how the state ought to manage petroleum resources and its population(petro-citizens) are also articulated by state officials (albeit in different ways and with differentoutcomes). A former Minister of Natural and Energy Resources, Rene Ortiz, for example,qualified actions against privatization as a sort of ‘‘allergy to change.’’ In his view, civil societyneeds to open its eyes to change, be ‘‘educated through Congress representatives’’ to understandthat the input of private capital is necessary for the improvement of society (Ortız, 2005).

Calculating petroleum’s territorialities

Examining the technologies that shape petroleum’s participation in the circulation ofcapital allows us to better appreciate how petroleum’s ‘nature’ gives shape to the kinds of

Fig. 2. Petroleum protests in Quito, August 2003. In this photo, CETAPE representatives use street puppets to depict

the ‘‘marriage of convenience’’ between the Ecuadorian government (bride dressed in white) and the IMF (groom

dressed in black).


petro-citizenship outlined above. Petroleum’s role in petro-citizenship is linked to the ‘mecha-nisms of calculation’ that give it meaning as an energy resource, that is, the procedures, methods,and techniques through which its qualities are described, measured, demarcated, and mapped(Elden, 2007). ‘Quality,’ in studies of natural resources, often involves a set of physical charac-teristics that can be measured to meet a desired and subjectively chosen standard achieved through


systems of production and consumption. These characteristics are often treated as a site uponwhich humans inscribe meaning. Here, quality is defined as more than physical characteristicsgrounding meaning; it is about the interconnections among the specificities of matter, productionpractices, and politico-economic projects that together influence the conduct of citizen-subjects. Ifocus on three interrelated aspects of petroleum’s matter to explore how the calculation of its qual-ity matters to the production of petro-subjectivities: state, behavior, and relationships. These char-acteristics of petroleum’s materiality are not necessarily measures of ‘the real thing,’ but strategiesthrough which scientific knowledge helps us understand and relate to petroleum as a resource.‘State’ refers to the distinctive biophysical and chemical attributes that shape petroleum’s prop-erties as a fuel: molecular composition, density, and viscosity. ‘Behavior’ refers to the propertiesof movement across space and time conditioned by petroleum’s state. For example, the flow andvolume that is transported through a pipeline (from extraction to export site) are determined by thedensity and viscosity of petroleum. ‘Relationships’ refers to how humans materially and ideolog-ically engage petroleum’s state and behavior to legitimate both specific claims about nature, tech-nology, and development, and specific subjectivities in relation to others.

The conceptual tools of organic chemistry help us understand how petroleum’s qualities arerelevant to its governance. Petroleum’s quality as an energy resource is conditioned by itsmolecular properties: the number and arrangement of carbon molecules present in the crude(which determine its density), the presence of other molecules (e.g., sulfides, nitrates, salt,water), and how much of a desirable compound can be separated from petroleum’s molecularassemblage through human labor and technology. According to chemists, while petroleum ismainly made of chains of hydrogen and carbon, no one crude oil is identical to another. Petro-leum is a mixture of 105e106 different molecules without a repeating molecular unit, whatscientists call an ‘‘Ultra-Complex Fluid’’ (Wiehe & Liang, 1996). Mixtures of hydrocarbonchains of various lengths occur simultaneously within a crude. The gravity or density of liquidpetroleum products is measured using an arbitrary scale designed by the American Petroleuminstitute (API) calibrated in terms of degrees API relative to specific gravity (density relative towater). Higher API indicates lower density. ‘Light crudes’ contain a higher fraction of shorterchains and have API gravities exceeding 38� API. ‘Intermediate crudes’ fall in the range of22�e31�, while ‘heavy crudes’ (which contain more of the denser hydrocarbon chains) havean API gravity of 22� or less. Sulfur compounds also matter. ‘Sweet crudes’ have low sulfurcontent (or less than 1%) and are considered of higher quality. ‘Sour crudes’ have a high sulfurcontent (or more than 2.5%), and ‘intermediate crudes’ are in between (Conaway, 1999).

After petroleum is extracted, its molecular composition is further refined in order to extractdesirable commodities (e.g., gasoline, diesel) from the raw material. Refining subjects a crudeto increasing temperatures in order to separate carbon chains from each other and concentratethe resulting fractions into a particular range of molecular size and density. The more uniformthe molecular composition of the crude, the higher the quality. Hydrocarbon molecules ofdifferent lengths have different properties and behaviors (Conaway, 1999), which in turn shapesits value as a commodity. Lighter and sweeter crudes typically produce derivatives of higherquality that comply with environmental standards (such as gasoline) and have a higherexchange value in the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).9 Heavier crudes typicallyrequire a much more complex and costly refining process to produce the kinds of derivativeshighly desired in modern society (Wiehe & Liang, 1996).

9 The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) is the world’s largest commodity futures exchange. The prices quoted

for transactions on energy products on the exchange are the basis for prices that people pay for throughout the world.


Technologies regulating the transport of petroleum

Simply put, the petroleum industry seeks to regulate the body of petroleumdits state andbehaviordthrough technologies that optimize economic value. To do so, it must disciplineand order petroleum’s behavior, particularly, its movement through space. Petroleum is trans-ported from extraction site to refineries through pipelines, which have a capacity determined byboth the pressure needed to overcome friction between the product and the inside wall of thepipeline, and the viscosity (resistance to flow) of the crude transported (Abdulkareem & Kovo,2006). The higher the viscosity of a crude, the greater the pressure needed to pump such crudethrough a pipe. Pump stations thus are the ‘‘heart of pipelines’’ (Strand, 2005); they play a fun-damental role in efficient and continued crude transportation. As the heart in warm-blooded be-ings, pump stations force petroleum down the pipeline, maintaining a controlled flow acrosslarge distances, even as changes in altitude and ambient temperature may alter viscosity andpressure within the pipeline (Bensakhria, Peysson, & Antonini, 2004; Saniere, Henaut, &Argillier, 2004). The spacing and horsepower required to drive the pumps is based on the de-sired pipeline flow rate, pipeline diameter, physical properties of the crude, and elevationchanges.

Pump stations are key to the transport of petroleum. The Ecuadorian physical landscapeprovides specific challenges to the flow of petroleum, since the SOTE traverses the AmazonianLowlands and the Andes Mountains (over 4000 m in elevation) in order to arrive to the exportports located in the Pacific region. The variations in temperature and elevation associated withthese distinct geographic areas condition changes in the state and behavior of petroleum, ascrude viscosity varies directly with density and temperature. To regulate the flow and viscosityof petroleum through these altitudinal effects, pump stations with heating systems across thelength of the pipeline regulate temperature and pressure conditions within the pipeline.Currently, the SOTE has five ‘hearts’ or pump stations on the eastern uphill side of the Andesto force petroleum flow, and four pressure reducing stations closer to the refinery terminals inthe Pacific coast. Stations are spaced at 30e50-mile intervals. The initial station in Lago Agriohas storage and generation facilities, heaters, pumps, and facilities to control oil pressure andvolume. The intermediate pumping stations (east to west), Lumbaqui, El Salado, Baeza, andPapallacta, include facilities to maintain petroleum pressure and flow, as well as heaters thatregulate the desired viscosity for effective transport.

To govern petroleum appropriately is to govern citizens

Opening oil fields to private companies in the 1980s added significant challenges to the trans-port of crude. The increase in private extraction, while leading to the desired boost in extraction,controversially pushed the only pipeline at the time, the SOTE, to full or near-full capacity.10

More importantly, pumping a higher volume of petroleum also affected the quality of crude trans-ported through the pipeline. Petroleum from Oriente fields varies in quality geographically, fromreservoirs with light crudes as high as 37� API in the north to heavy crudes about 10� API in thesouth (Canfield, 1991; Oil & Gas Journal, 1982).11 The SOTE was originally designed to

10 SOTE capacity is about 330,000 b/d, but the combined potential productive capacity of operators in the Oriente is

estimated at more than 600,000 b/d (Oil & Gas Journal, 1999).11 Variations in petroleum quality are also found within reservoirs in the same well due to spatial dynamics of gener-

ation, migration, and entrapment of petroleum at different geologic times (Dashwood & Abbotts, 1990).


transport crudes with a 29� API from Lago Agrio to the Pacific coast, the API expected fromfields in the northern Amazon in the late 1960s. However, as more companies operated through-out the Amazon, crudes of different qualities were blended together in their journey in the SOTE.The resulting product is the Oriente Blend (petroleum exported from the northern Amazon andtraded in international markets), which has distinctive quality, chemical, and financial properties.With a 24.8� API average gravity and 1.4% sulfur content, the Blend is an intermediate semi-heavy crude for global market transactions, of reduced quality when compared to that exploitedin northern oilfields by Petroecuador. The NYMEX price for this intermediate semi-heavy crudeis set against the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark, a light, sweet crude with 37� APIgravity and 0.7% sulfur content. To account for the difference in quality, and how this translates tothe kinds of fuel products that can be derived, a discount or ‘penalty’ is applied to the exchangevalue of the Blend in the market. The discount compensates, in part, the costs incurred by refinersto process heavier sour crudes under recent increases in environmental standards (OPEC,2005).12 Those most invested in the survival of the national petroleum industry interpreted thereduction of Petroecuador’s crude value as an attack on national sovereignty. In their most criticalinterpretations, technologies of governance that condone the dilution of petroleum’s quality havebeen equated with threatening national identity, ‘‘pillaging’’ national resources, and the perpet-uation of poverty (Vinueza, 2006).

The reduced qualities of the Oriente Blend, in conjunction with policies that favored an increasein private extraction, conditioned particular politicoeeconomic relations of crude production.Since 1985, the SOTE has been updated through joint-venture agreements between Petroecuadorand private companies to expand its capabilities (e.g., adding new pumps and upgrading the capa-bilities of existing ones, and introducing internal systems of inspection), in order to adjust to theincrease in flow of crudes of lower API (denser crudes) and higher viscosity (Oil & Gas Journal,2000). The high viscosity in heavier crudes is attributed to their high molecular weight componentsand to the formation of ordered structures in the liquid phase (carbon molecules which becomeentangled and aggregated at low temperatures) (Khan, 1996; Yagui & Al-Bemani, 2002). A secondpipeline, OCP, was proposed by state officials and private interests as a way to alleviate the ‘‘over-taxed’’ and ‘‘outdated’’ national facilities (BBC News, 2001).

The OCP powerfully illustrates the entanglement between political-economic rationalities ofpetroleum production and the production of petroleum subjectivities. In 2001, several sectors ofsocietydincluding Petroecuador workersdquestioned the need to build the pipeline on thegrounds that it threatened the social and environmental health of the places it traversed. Petroe-cuador workers based their opposition on the grounds that the OCP increased the pace of re-serves depletion and harmed the well-being of the Ecuadorian state and its people (Cano,Villavicencio, & Jacome, 2002). Then President Gustavo Noboadcalling upon the rationalitiesand calculations of the OCP to set up the political field of petroleum governancedreplied that‘‘nobody is going to screw up this country.the pipeline goes because it can. It will go the wayit has it go, where technology says it makes sense to go, and not where four fools, and a majorhere and there, say it should’’ (quoted in Accion Ecologica, 2003). Amidst intense opposition,the OCP, an exclusively heavy-crude transportation system financed, maintained, and used by

12 In January 2005, Ecuador saw the steepest penalty yet on its Oriente blend, an $18 discount from the WTI benc

mark, which priced the blend at $29.17 per barrel when the price was above $40 per barrel in the international mark

Record low prices for the Oriente blend were occurring when prices for WTI was increasing as a result of oversupply

heavier crudes and higher demand for lighter grades in the market (Diario Hoy, 2005).

h-

et.

of


transnational companies, was put into production in 2003.13 Meant to increase foreign produc-tivity, the OCP was justified by state officials as a way to alleviate the load transported by theSOTE (which now mainly transports crude extracted from Petroecuador fields) and allow pri-vate companies to exploit and transport crudes of higher density and sulfur content to maximizethe volume of total production.

The OCP thus became a technology of rule and discipline through which state officials ra-tionalized the participation of private companies in petroleum extraction as beneficial for theEcuadorian people. When only the SOTE was in operation, the quality of Petroecuador’s crude(and, therefore, its exchange value) was reduced by blending with crudes exploited by transna-tional companies, which reduced the revenues collected by the state (Acosta, 2005; Diario Hoy,2004; Jimenez & Rulliere, 2003; Oil & Gas Journal, 2000). The separation of crudes of distinctqualities made possible by the OCP was meantdaccording to Petroecuador’s public relationsrepresentativedto improve the price of the Oriente Blend, which had been deeply discountedthrough blending with lower quality crudes exploited by foreign companies. As then presidentof Petroecuador, Rodolfo Barniol noted, Petroecuador hoped that the OCP would allow theOriente Blend to capture higher prices, since it would no longer be ‘‘diluted’’ with ‘lowerquality’ oil, as well as free up space in the SOTE to be leased to private companies (quotedby Reuters, 03/23/2001).14

While the body of petroleum has shaped the rationalities of its governance by the state, thetechnologies and ‘mechanisms of calculation’ that mediate its production are also sites of cit-izen-identity articulation. Moments of irruption in the spaces and technologies that regulate pe-troleum’s flow in the Amazon, for example, mark the ways in which petro-citizenship hasbecome a way of conducting life that articulates ‘being Ecuadorian’ with the moral responsibil-ity of protecting national resources. Throughout 2006, Amazonian residents have ‘taken’ theSardinas, Baeza, and Salado pumping stationsdsitting in, unplugging machinery, and puttingup roadblocksdto demand the construction of highways and an airport, promised by formernational leaders, but never accomplished. Their actions at each pumping station of the pipelineshalted national production, sometimes for hours, other times for days (Houston Chronicle,2006). Taking control over the ‘arteries’ and ‘hearts’ that regulate the flow of petroleum thusallows us to understand technologies of production as sites through which petro-citizenshipis articulated.15

In both the cases of petroleum workers and Amazonian settlers who participate in strikes,petro-citizenship is defined in relation to petroleum’s matter, the physical body through whichrights, duties, and membership are established. As such, petroleum’s matter ‘territorializes’(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) petro-citizenship. Citizenship takes on meaning through identifica-tion with petroleum’s specific qualities and is practiced through interaction with the technolo-gies that regulate its production. Regulating the spaces and technologies that allow petroleum’stransformation thus become ways through which to enact subjectivity and produce truths aboutnational belonging that condition identities within the nation’s territory.

13 The OCP currently has four pumping stations that operate in series on the uphill part of pipeline (Amazonas, Caya-

gama, Sardinas, and Paramo) providing the dynamic pressure head needed for flow as the altitude increases (reaching up

to 4062 m).14 The Oriente crude, largely sold to the U.S. West Coast, is similar to Alaska North Slope (ANS), a medium-heavy

crude with 30� API produced in Alaska.15 Studies on the associations between corporeality and citizenship have focused on how people mobilize bio-citizen-

ship in relation to human bodies (cf. Plows & Boddington, 2006); however, this case suggests that the form and behavior

of non-human bodies are also significant to the construction of collective subjectivities.


Conclusion

Petroleum’s capacity to produce energy has shaped the historical progress of exporting coun-tries around the world (cf. Coronil, 1997; Dunning & Wirpsa, 2004; Klare, 2001; Le Billon,2001; Watts, 2004). While petroleum production finances progress for nation-states and raisestheir international profile, however, it also generates forms of ‘truncated modernity’ where de-velopment promises have not always been fulfilled (Coronil, 1997). Disillusionment with petro-leum’s capacity to produce modernity is particularly evident in the spaces and institutionsthrough which petroleum is conjured as a resource of national importance, and in the actionsof individuals whose identities and politics are historically conjoined to its extraction. Govern-mentality, with its focus on the analytics of power, offers productive ways for understandinghow the political rationalities and mechanisms of petroleum production and petroleum’s matterare significant to this outcome. By highlighting the entanglements between the political econ-omy of petroleum, mechanisms of subject formation, and the matter of petroleum, this an anal-ysis of citizenship production has explored the conjunctural nature of how petroleum’sgovernment has become a mode of regulation of social life among specific sectors of Ecuador-ian civil society.

Petroleum mediates social life in important ways. First, it grounds the production of themodern ‘Ecuadorian nation-state’ and its politicoeeconomic government. The presence oflarge petroleum reserves, the policies that govern its production, and the particular constellationof politico-economic interests that shaped petroleum as an energy resource in the 20th centurycrystallized Ecuador as a petro-state. The transformation of petroleum into wealth for the im-provement of Ecuadorian society (citizen population) elevated and expanded the state as thevehicle for progress (manager of petroleum revenues). Second, petroleum references territoria-litiesdparticular imaginaries of belonging to the modern nationdand shapes understandings ofnational territory and nationhood. This is evident in the ways in which Amazonian residents andpetroleum workers contest neoliberal rationalities of petroleum production, accusing thenational government of irresponsible behavior towards its citizens, and transnational corpora-tions of robbing national patrimony. Their goaldas ‘responsible citizens’dis not to stop petro-leum production or its commodification, but to transform the current rationalities that governtechnologies (e.g., pipelines, concessions, oil fields) and relationships of production, in orderto better serve the governed collective. Thus, the rationalities and mechanisms of petroleumproduction generate a government that defines understandings of petroleum as the subterraneanbody through which sovereignty is established, and through which the conduct of both govern-ing and governed is disciplined. Petroleum, in Ecuador, grounds territorialities that bring to-gether politico-economic rationalities of governance with questions of citizenship, rights, andlegitimacy.

Third, petroleum is a site of identity articulation. Protests, strikes, take over of petroleum fa-cilities and so on offer revealing moments through which to understand the role of petroleum inshaping territorialities in citizenship articulation. The very technologies that mediate the disci-plining of petroleum as ‘‘the body of the nation’’ (Coronil, 1997)dtransportation and refininginfrastructuredbecame physical spaces of political interruption through which both Petroecua-dor workers and Amazonian residents expressed their discontent with management of petroleumrents. Control over the spaces through which petroleum travels and how its body is transformedand transported became elements of socio-economic articulation, regionally and nationally. Bio-physical qualities (API and sulfur content) that shape the capacities of petroleum (its exchangevalue) also became spaces through which to articulate petro-citizenship, particularly for citizens


concerned with the effects of the dilution of quality of national crude. Governing the capabilitiesand flows of petroleum’s body effectively shapes access to mechanisms that regulate and opti-mize a state of life or living-in-relation to petroleum. Attention to how the qualities of petroleumterritorialize social relations brings into view a richer understanding of how material qualities areentangled with the emotions, desires, and needs of individuals seeking to reconfigure their po-sition as subjects of the nation-state.

Fourth, governing relations are not static. Taking on the role of ‘concerned citizens,’Amazonian residents and Petroecuador workers have sought to destabilize rationalities andtechniques of petroleum governance that have historically marginalized specific populationswithin Ecuador. Just as these actors articulate particular imaginaries of petro-nationalism inrelation to the management of petroleum rents, government officials also produce distinctunderstandings of these ‘‘countergovernmentalities’’ (Luke, 1996), labeling attacks, invasions,and strikes as practices of subversion that threaten the politicaleeconomic security of thenation-state. In other words, while Petroecuador workers and Amazonian settlers see theiractions as expressions of citizenship, some state officials interpret them as unpatriotic actsthat need to be disciplined for the security of the nation, and its source of wealth, petroleum.

Petro-assemblages that join together cultural desires and ‘material things’ mark importantconjunctures in the government of people. As Ecuadorian subjects identify themselves (theirneeds, desires, aspirations) with the conditions of petroleum productiondas well as which in-dustry governs it (national or foreign)dpetroleum’s qualities give shape to ways of envisioningand practicing citizenship, and fuel strong and radicalized views about nationalism among thosemost closely associated with production. Thus, local irruptions into petroleum governance areabout recognition and grounding of identity, and about life and survival in a world wherepolitics, humans, and non-human beings are mutually and ambivalently crafted.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for the institutional support provided by the Department of Geography and theGraduate School at the University of Minnesota, and the MacArthur Interdisciplinary Programon Global Change, Sustainability, and Justice. The Spatial Analysis Lab in the Department ofGeography at UNC, Chapel Hill provided valuable resources and expertise for cartographicproduction. I also benefited from conversations with participants of the social theory and humangeography reading group, particularly, Joe Bryan at UNC, Chapel Hill and from participation inthe 2007e2008 Mellon Sawyer Seminar on The Changing Nature(s) of Land: Property, Peas-ants and Agricultural Production in a Global World. I am grateful for the comments of the threeanonymous reviewers; their constructive and detailed suggestions significantly improved thispaper. In Ecuador, my special thanks go to Marcela Benavides for her helpful comments, in-sightful contributions, and contagious passion for change. My thanks also go to those whoshared their life stories of petroleum-related struggle and allowed me to observe them in action.All errors of interpretation remain mine.

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