The Loss of Oil: Constituting Disaster in Amazonian Ecuador

Few objects elicit more talk of radical endings than oil, the world's most important industrial commodity. In this article, I examine oil-associated loss by exploring the extent to which its extraction becomes "disastrous" for the lives and lands of peoples who inhabit oil-producing regions. In the OPEC nation Ecuador, the most visible symbols of oil's destructive power are indigenous Cof'an people. Numerous articles, documentaries, websites, and lawsuits portray Cof'an territory as an ecological and sociocultural wasteland. In order to counteract the defeatist spirit and analytic closure of narratives of devastation, I propose an alternative conceptual framework that acknowledges the open-ended presence of oil in Cof'an discourse and practice. Much more than a simple story of loss, a Cof'an phenomenology of oil combines the reality of destruction with a set of ellipses, contradictions, and opportunities that allow Cof'an people both to deny and to prevent their destruction.