Crude Domination

Andrea Behrends is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg and former Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

• List of FiguresPART I: GENERALITIESChapter 1. The Crazy Curse and Crude Domination: Towards an Anthropology of OilStephen Reyna and Andrea BehrendsChapter 2. Oiling the Race to the BottomJonathan FriedmanPART II: AFRICAChapter 3. Blood Oil: The Anatomy of a Petro-Insurgency in the Niger Delta, NigeriaMichael WattsChapter 4. Fighting for oil when there is no oil yet – The Darfur-Chad borderAndrea BehrendsChapter 5. Elfs and Witches: Oil Cleptocrats and the Destruction of Social Order in Congo-BrazzavilleKajsa Ekholm FriedmanChapter 6. Constituting Domination/Constructing Monsters:Imperialism, Cultural Desire, and anti-Beowulfs in the Chadian Petro-stateStephen P. ReynaPART III: LATIN AMERICAChapter 7. The Persistent Imaginary of ‘the People's Oil’: Nationalism, Globalisation and the Possibility of Another Country in Brazil, Mexico and VenezuelaJohn GledhillChapter 8.“Now That the Petroleum is Ours:” Community Media, State Spectacle, and Oil Nationalism in VenezuelaNaomi SchillerChapter 9. Flashpoints of Sovereignty: Territorial Conflict and Natural Gas in BoliviaBret GustafsonPART IV. POST-SOCIALIST RUSSIAChapter 10. Oil Without Conflict? The Anthropology of Industrialisation in Northern RussiaFlorian StammlerChapter 11. ‘Against… Domination’: Oil and War in ChechnyaGalina Khizrieva and Stephen P. ReynaAfterword Suggestions for a Second Reading: An Alternative Perspective on Contested Resources as an Explanation for ConflictGünther SchleeNotes on Contributors

“This book is chiefly valuable for the nuanced, in-depth reporting of the cases, especially the violent ones. Valuable for scholars of resource conflict, and necessary reading for anyone deeply researching oil politics.”  ·  Choice"Here is anthropology at its critical and relevant best. Nothing could be more topical than the role of oil in contemporary global turmoil and “the crazy curse” that it casts over all manner of human endeavour and hope. The essays in this important book offer major insights into the heart of the crisis of capital and the local cultural phantasmagoria expressing its cruel paradoxes. The ethnographic analyses expand important arguments in other disciplines (especially economics and political science) and demonstrate the valuable necessity of anthropological perspectives. This is a must read for anthropologists and those in other disciplines who are concerned with the dynamics of global power as this is exposed in the struggle over the control of scarce resources and its tragic human effects."  ·  Bruce Kapferer, University of Bergen