This article analyzes the history of hydrocarbon waste across Algeria and France. Focusing on the critical years between the discovery of oil in late-colonial Algeria in 1956 and Third World resource nationalism in the mid-1970s, the paper traces a shifting conceptualization of hydrocarbon waste: from political lever to economic loss to human rights violation. The paper argues that this shared history still shapes the politics of hydrocarbon waste today and shows how this history calls into question conventional distinctions between colonial and neo-colonial eras, a debate that erupted powerfully during the recent Hirak protests in Algeria.
Jennings, Gemma,
"Environmental Colonialism and Hydrocarbon Waste in Historical Perspective: The Case of Algeria and France"
(2022).
Commodity Frontiers.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/28pm-t559
Commodity Frontiers is the Journal of the Commodity Frontiers Initiative (CFI). Edited by a group of scholars and researchers from various disciplines and organizations in the CFI Network, the Journal explores the history and present of capitalism, contestation, and ecological …
