Resource Curse? Governmentality, Oil and Power in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Datos Bibliográficos

ID23733705
AutoresMichael Watts (0000-0002-8571-0030), Michael R Watts (autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Páginas503-533
Fecha de publicación2017-10-24
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoCHAPTER
RevistaEnvironment (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9781315256351-22
OpenAlexW4237782625
ISBN9781315256351
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas12

This chapter explores how oil capitalism produces, from the realities of forms of rule and political authority into which it is inserted, specific sorts of what Rose call &s;governable space&s;. It focuses on three spaces–chieftainship, the space of indigeneity, and the nation – each of which is associated with conflict and violence. The chapter seeks to trace the variety of violences engendered by oil, to elaborate the ways in which resources, territoriality and identity can constitute forms of rule. Crude oil production in the Niger delta currently runs at 2.18 million barrels per day, accounting for over 90 per cent of Nigerian foreign exchange earnings. Oil production in Nigeria has always been a joint venture, currently 16 oil majors bound by joint operating agreements to determine the distribution of royalties and rents. Oil has been a sort of idiom in which new social forces are unleashed, overturning traditional power structures and in some cases generating violent conflict, albeit along a series of rather different vectors.

Curse · Delta · Governmentality · Natural resource · Niger delta · Physics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Resource curse · Sociology · Anthropology · Engineering · Global Energy and Sustainability Research · Law · Natural Resources and Economic Development