Flammable Societies

The impact of the oil and gas industry - paradoxically seen both as a blessing and a curse on socio-economic development - is a question at the heart of the comparative studies in this volume, stretching from Northern Europe to the Caucasus, the Gulf of Guinea to Latin America. Britain's transformation under Margaret Thatcher into a supposedly post-industrial society orientated towards consumer sovereignty was paid for with revenues from the North Sea oil industry, an industry conveniently out of sight and out of mind for many. Drawing on bottom-up research and theoretical reflection, the authors question the political and scientific basis of current international policy that aims to address the problem of resource management through standard Western models of economic governance, institution building, and national sovereignty. This book offers valuable material for students and researchers concerned with politics, inequality, and poverty in resource-rich countries. Among the key critical issues the book highlights is the need to understand the politics of social territorialism as a response to exclusionary geopolitics.

John-Andrew McNeish is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsens Institute. He is the project leader of the Norwegian Research Council funded project Flammable Societies: The Role of the Oil and Gas Industry in the Promotion of Poverty Reduction and Social Volatility, on which the book Flammable Societies is based.

Owen J. Logan is a photographer, writer, and a Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen where he worked with the Lives in the Oil Industry oral history project. His work has been exhibited and published widely and is in the art collection of the Scottish Parliament. He is a contributing editor to Variant Magazine.