Crude Encounters

Authors

  • Amelia Fiske Technical University of Munich (TUM)
  • Jonas Fischer

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc-springs-4723

Abstract

Participants on a “toxic tour” of oil operations encounter crude oil for the first time and experience what it means to live amid oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon today. Based on ethnographic field research, this artistic contribution illustrates a sensorial confrontation with the contents of a waste pit in the forest. Participants on toxic tours remove oily soil from the ground, squish black leaves between their fingers, and breathe the air polluted by gas flaring as they contemplate what it means to live alongside oil extraction.

Author Biographies

  • Amelia Fiske, Technical University of Munich (TUM)

    Amelia Fiske is a cultural anthropologist. She completed more than two years of ethnographic research on oil production in the Ecuadorian Amazon as part of her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, US. Her work is situated at the intersection of cultural anthropology, science and technology studies, graphic art, social medicine and bioethics, and the environmental humanities. Amelia came to the RCC as a visiting scholar in 2017.

  • Jonas Fischer

    Jonas Fischer has always been fascinated by comics and drawing. He holds an MA in design from the Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel, Germany. Fischer has worked with several scientists to visually document their practices and findings for the public.

     

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Published

31-10-2023

Issue

No. 4 (2023)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Jonas Fischer and Amelia Fiske

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.