Invisible harms, invisible profits

A Theory of the Incentive to Contaminate

Bibliographic Data

ID5850873
AuthorsLindsay Ofrias (Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume58
Issue4
Pages435-456
Publication date2017-08-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueRenaissance and Modern Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0486-3720 • E-ISSN: 1473-5784
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14735784.2017.1357478
OpenAlexW2745702412
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited39

Building on ethnographic research conducted in the Ecuadorian Amazon, this paper seeks to reframe the industrial contamination problem. From critiques of neoliberalism to Marxist-oriented environment theories, industrial contamination is understood as a secondary effect of a larger problem of the capitalist system. There are at least four, often overlapping, ways of understanding the pervasiveness of the problem, via: (1) cost-benefit analyses, which determine it to be cheaper to remediate environmental damages than prevent them; (2) weak regulation, which shapes those cost-benefit analyses; (3) the externalisation of certain costs onto third (usually marginalised) parties; and (4) contradictions inherent to capital accumulation which promote the destruction of the very environmental conditions that capital depends on. Curiously, even where contamination is conceptualised as an inherent and necessary feature of capitalism, it appears as collateral damage, as the 'unintentional by-product' of something-other, rather than a 'conscious imposition of "power over"' a particular group of people (De Angelis, M. 2004. 'Separating the Doing and the Deed: Capital and the Continuous Character of Enclosures'. Historical Materialism 12:2, 57-87). This is curious because small farmers and indigenous people affected by a devastating oil-related disaster in Ecuador describe contamination otherwise - as a kind of targeted, chemical warfare against those living 'in the way of' extractive operations. Dealing with the narrative gap between those lived experiences of contamination and the expert discourses about it, this paper introduces the concept of an 'incentive to contaminate'. By critically expanding the prevailing theories, the concept turns greater attention to the productive work that contamination does for the oil industry, thus challenging socio-legal categories of intent that impede environmental justice

Corruption and Economic Development · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Natural Resources and Economic Development

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