CFP: petrocultures2020: transformations, 26-29 Aug., 2020 (Stavanger, Norway)

fyi, i
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It's my pleasure to share the cfp for the 2020 Petrocultures, which will
run from the 26th of August to the 29th, and will be hosted at the amazing
Norwegian Petroleum Museum.

The cfp follows below. Please share widely.

We live in turbulent times, and the role of petroleum is at the heart of
global and local political debate. Indeed, a transition to a world without
oil as its primary source of fuel and energy is needed if we want to reach
the international climate targets, but the feasibility, realism and not
least timing is strongly debated. Oil will indeed come to an end, but
whether the closing date is set by emptied reservoirs, greener
alternatives, or political decisions, is still to be determined.
Recognizing that the “age of oil” is being challenged, petrocultures2020
invites scholars and artists, journalists and activists, politicians and
business actors to critically engage in the debate and the alternatives.
The conference will be held at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum and a nearby
conference venue in Stavanger, the energy capital of Norway.

In petrocultures2020 we will host presentations, exhibits and conversations
regarding the transformations needed to influence the transition from our
current culture and dependency on oil. Looming over these discussions we
recognize the wealth and progress enabled by our exploitation and use of
oil. We acknowledge the technical and structural solutions developed and
renewable transitions initiated by parts of the petroleum industry. We also
observe the linkages that exist between the burning of fossil fuels, human
induced climate change and differing levels of socio-environmental
conflict. We thus emphasize oil’s dual role as the basis of prosperity and
implication in environmental destruction and global conflict. Accepting
this we aim to create a forum for a constructive exchange about the way
green transition initiatives are narrated – including the way oil is
narrated in the past, present and future – across social and political
divides. It is also of interest to investigate how the petroleum industry
can/will be a part of this transition, and what consequences the transition
will have for the workers presently depending on the industry. Worker
participation in the industry has historically and may well also in the
future be a central aspect to reduce the inherent conflicts of a transition.

Under the banners of 5 thematic sections, petrocultures2020 seeks to
advance conversations about the multiple dimensions of oil. We do so,
recognizing that oil is not only as a source of energetic power, but of
political, economic and social power. It is in this light we question oil’s
significance and remaining power in an era of impending transformation.


*themes*
oil:narratives. From fairy tales to curses, from celebratory tales of
pioneers to dismal accounts of victims, oil has inspired contrasting
narratives around the world. These encompass origins, belonging, identity,
progress and development, for oil has been rendered in ways that matter to
not only oil companies and governments, but to most people on the planet.
It has helped found our world and continues to modulate it, establishing
not only the present of the people of the world, but also their past and
future. This section invites scholars to engage with oil as a catalyst for
narratives that have framed nations, corporations, groups and individuals.
We seek contributions that grapple with the forms that narratives take
around oil, that ponder how they shape history and the ways in which they
shape imaginaries of post-petroleum worlds.

oil:nature. Oil has served as the main catalyst for the 20th century’s
economic growth and exploitation of natural resources. Oil has re-defined
our relationship to and understanding of the nature-culture divide.
Extractive frontiers have continuously expanded, inspiring the recent
scientific proposal that we are now living in a new geological epoch in
which humans have left an indelible impact on the planet i.e. the
Anthropocene. In this section we invite papers and presentations that seek
to explore this symbolic proposal and the possibility of it signalling the
need for a profound change in human-nature relations. We wish to encourage
thought and discussion of its impacts on personal identity, and
ramifications for how we address pollution, social justice, public health
and rights to land, water streams and seascapes.

oil:conflict. Numerous historical and contemporary events – from the Chaco
War to recent Saudi bombings in Yemen – remind us that oil has been and
remains a catalyst of conflicts. International wars, civil war, criminal
violence and varying forms of socio-environmental contestation are linked
to control of oil production, indicating oil’s influence across scales and
temporalities. We invite scholars to reopen and reframe taken-for-granted
assumptions about the resource curse, and to consider anew the significance
of oil in geopolitics, economic development and alliances over extractive
energy sources. We provide a space for scholars who work on violent
contexts and aim to attract analysts who focus on the dynamics of militancy
and alternative forms of socio-political and legal action to question oil
governance. While inviting papers that reveal the inner workings of
large-scale conflicts, we also anticipate papers that unpack how social
movements and community campaigns oppose, benefit and tame oil production
and exploration – frequently in the face of repressive prosecution and
potential assassination.

oil:work. While scholarship on the petroleum industry is vast, research on
oil workers and their communities is rather limited. Yet, oil workers are
intrinsic to an understanding of oil cultures as well as the politics of
oil. Their history is as old and tortuous as the history of commodified
oil, hence this section invites papers that analyse the embedding of labour
histories of oil in wider global histories of labour. On the one hand, oil
workers are relatively few and difficult to organise, considering the
economic and technological intensity of the petroleum industry and the
physical infrastructure, on the other, oil workers and their organisations
have played important roles in democratic transitions and economic
struggles. Papers on all kinds of cultural and political expression of oil,
work and workers are welcome, as are those that tackle how oil workers
constitute themselves as groups and in trade unions, how their work
schedules influence their social lives, and how their trade interacts with
their situated social status. We open for discussions and exploration on
the role of workers in the petroleum industries in a green transition.

oil:visions invites all papers that plumb visions of the cultural and
historical transformations wrought by the oil industry, and interrogate
transformations away from oil based societies. These visions can be
artistic, critical or otherwise creative, and can refer to the past,
present, or future, including solarpunk and post-apocalyptic visions of
desirable futures. We welcome contributions that explore how literature,
film, the visual arts, and other narrative and aesthetic forms of
expression render visible phenomena around oil and the many transformations
that exist in ontological kinship with it. Papers will draw out how the
arts visualize, channel and evoke concerns and enthusiasm about justice,
progress, technology, ecology, prosperity, scarcity, abundance and capital
in an age of transformation. Ingrained and reflected here is the vital
question of how visions of oil – past, present and future – shape the
politics of transformation in the present.

*Individual Papers:* Please submit a 400 word (max) abstract that
identifies the themes your paper responds to along with a 200 word (max)
bio by 20 January 2020.

*Pre-Formed Panels, Workshops, or Roundtables:* Please submit a two page
panel description that identifies the themes the panel responds to as well
as the institution, research group, or network organizing the panel,
workshop, or roundtable by 15 December 2019. Panels must also include 250
word abstracts and brief bios for the individual papers that comprise the
panel.

All submissions and inquiries can be sent to the organizers' email:
[email protected].

Please follow the conference website here
<https://petrocultures2020.wixsite.com/transformations> for more details
and updates.

Take care,
Jordan
Jordan B. Kinder, PhD
Research Director
Petrocultures Research Group
Futures Energy Systems, University of Alberta
[email protected]
After Oil <http://afteroil.ca/> // Petrocultures <http://petrocultures.com/>
 // Just Powers <http://justpowers.ca/> // Future Energy Systems
<https://futureenergysystems.ca/>
https://jbkinder.github.io/

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