Why Women are at War with Chevron

Nigerian Subsistence Struggles against the International Oil Industry

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2307804
AutoresTerisa E Turner (University of Guelph), Leigh S Brownhill (University of Toronto), Leigh Brownhill (autor correspondente)
Ano2004
Volume39
Fascículo1-2
Páginas63-93
Data de publicação2004-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Asian and African Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-9096 • E-ISSN: 1745-2538
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0021909604048251
OpenAlexW2018753722
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas40
Referências citadas7

This study is an inquiry into why women were at war with oil companies in Nigeria and how they internationalized their struggle. Employing the Midnight Notes Collective's concept of "the new enclosures"; Shiva, Mies, and Bennholdt-Thomsen's "subsistence perspective"; and McMurtry's concept of the "civil commons," the study elaborates a "gendered class analysis" to consider the social anatomy of coordinated global actions by producers and consumers of oil. Part one examines the period from July 2002 to February 2003. Nigerian women occupied oil terminals and flow stations and inspired global protests against war and oil companies. Part two considers widespread Nigerian workers' strikes in the period from February 2003 to July 2003. These included work stoppages in transport, the oil industry, and the public service; a two-week seizure by oil workers of four Trans-ocean deep-sea platforms and an eight-day general strike against increases in the price of petroleum products. Part three analyzes the July-September 2003 period. From 10 July 2003 peasant women occupied oil facilities throughout the Delta. As official government neared collapse, village and clan-based organizations assumed much of the responsibility for the oversight of their own communities. By September 2003, insurgents shut down some 40 percent of Nigerian crude oil production capacity. Villagers denied oil companies all physical access to the western Delta. Chevron/Texaco, Shell, other majors and their contractors evacuated their Warri headquarters. The autonomous village organizations, linked to each other through regional solidarity networks, coordinated pan-Delta defense against Nigerian and U.S. military counterinsurgency. The study concludes with an analysis of the roots of insurgent power and direct deals in oil

Agriculture · Archaeology · Clan · Economic growth · Economics · Economy · Geography · Government (linguistics · Peasant · Petroleum industry · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Subsistence agriculture · Engineering · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · Natural Resources and Economic Development · Oil, Gas, and Environmental Issues · Law