Against all Odds: Oil Culture and the Commodity Consensus in Argentina's Patagonia

NATALIA BARRIONUEVO; STEFAN PETERS

The rhetoric of oil in the twenty-first century

Routledge

Año: 2019; p. 1 - 305

For several decades development studies discusses the effects of oil on economic, social and political development. Although increasingly contested, the Resource Curse paradigm maintains its dominance in the debate. Moreover, during last years, activists and research alike has increasingly put emphasis on negative socio-environmental consequences of oil extraction. In sum, there are several reasons why the population of oil-based societies could mistrust promises regarding oil-based development successes and rather contest exploitation. However, in oil towns this generally does not happen. Although there is no doubt that oil triggers conflicts, these conflicts generally deal with the control of oil rents and its distribution, but they do not put in question oil extraction. Based on extensive qualitative field work the paper analyzes the construction and maintenance of a consensus on oil in Comodoro Rivadavia in Argentina?s Patagonia, bringing together insights from political economy and social anthropology. The paper argues that the consensus on oil permeates the whole local society and is even strengthened in times of crisis of the model. In order to understand the construction of the broad support base it is argued that this social consensus on oil extraction is constructed on both the material basis (rent distribution, employment, economic dependency) and the construction and resignification of historical social imaginaries that are reflected in quasi naturalized claims towards the state, particular consumption and distinction patterns as well as specific society-nature relations and different ideas of individual and collective progress. We conclude that oil culture is a crucial factor for understanding the construction of support for the oil industry in spite of its adverse consequences.