Duke University Press, 2020 eISBN: 978-1-4780-1252-8 | Cloth: 978-1-4780-0993-1 | Paper: 978-1-4780-1099-9 Library of Congress Classification HD9581.B52G87 2020
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK Evo Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous president, won reelection three times on a leftist platform championing Indigenous rights, anti-imperialism, and Bolivian control over the country's natural gas reserves. In Bolivia in the Age of Gas, Bret Gustafson explores how the struggle over natural gas has reshaped Bolivia, along with the rise, and ultimate fall, of the country's first Indigenous-led government. Rethinking current events against the backdrop of a longer history of oil and gas politics and military intervention, Gustafson shows how natural gas wealth brought a measure of economic independence and redistribution, yet also reproduced political and economic relationships that contradicted popular and Indigenous aspirations for radical change. Though grounded in the unique complexities of Bolivia, the volume argues that fossil-fuel political economies worldwide are central to the reproduction of militarism and racial capitalism and suggests that progressive change demands moving beyond fossil-fuel dependence and the social and ecological ills that come with it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Bret Gustafson is Associate Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of New Languages of the State: Indigenous Resurgence and the Politics of Knowledge in Bolivia, also published by Duke University Press.
REVIEWS
“Fossil capitalism, and the calamitous consequences of our dependence on coal and petroleum, is central to any understanding of life in the Anthropocene. Bret Gustafson offers up an original and compelling take on the oft-told tale of oil wealth, petroviolence, and the so-called curse of oil dependency by reinterpreting the colonial and postcolonial history of Bolivia through the country's relation to natural gas, what he calls the gaseous state. Gustafson draws together the temporalities, spaces, and excesses of a world built through the exploitation of gas and in so doing takes the reader on an exhilarating ride through US imperialism, the Bolivian state, Indigenous territoriality, the hard-edged world of pipelines, wellheads, violent corporate capital, and of course the rise and fall of Evo Morales. A book for our time.”
-- Michael Watts, Class of 63 Professor, University of California, Berkeley
“Bolivia in the Age of Gas is without a doubt the definitive account of the Bolivian petrostate and its subjects. It makes important contributions to anthropology, to Latin American studies, and to the emergent interdisciplinary literature in energy humanities. It is also a true pleasure to read, the rare scholarly page-turner that conveys critical analytical insights in terms and ethnographic moments that will captivate readers of all backgrounds.”
-- Dominic Boyer, author of Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations ix Note on Labels and Language xiii Preface and Acknowledgments xv Introduction. Gaseous State 1 Part One. Time 1. Heroes of Chaco 27 2. Imperial Maneuvers 50 3. Las nalgas of YPFB 69 Part Two. Space 4. Gas Lock-In 97 5. Bulls and Beauty Queens 125 6. Just a Few Lashes 152 Part Three. Excess 7. Requiem for the Dead 179 8. Gas Work 202 9. Quarrel over the Excess 223 Postscript. Bolivia 2020 247 Notes 255 References 271 Index 293
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Duke University Press, 2020 eISBN: 978-1-4780-1252-8 Cloth: 978-1-4780-0993-1 Paper: 978-1-4780-1099-9
Evo Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous president, won reelection three times on a leftist platform championing Indigenous rights, anti-imperialism, and Bolivian control over the country's natural gas reserves. In Bolivia in the Age of Gas, Bret Gustafson explores how the struggle over natural gas has reshaped Bolivia, along with the rise, and ultimate fall, of the country's first Indigenous-led government. Rethinking current events against the backdrop of a longer history of oil and gas politics and military intervention, Gustafson shows how natural gas wealth brought a measure of economic independence and redistribution, yet also reproduced political and economic relationships that contradicted popular and Indigenous aspirations for radical change. Though grounded in the unique complexities of Bolivia, the volume argues that fossil-fuel political economies worldwide are central to the reproduction of militarism and racial capitalism and suggests that progressive change demands moving beyond fossil-fuel dependence and the social and ecological ills that come with it.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Bret Gustafson is Associate Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of New Languages of the State: Indigenous Resurgence and the Politics of Knowledge in Bolivia, also published by Duke University Press.
REVIEWS
“Fossil capitalism, and the calamitous consequences of our dependence on coal and petroleum, is central to any understanding of life in the Anthropocene. Bret Gustafson offers up an original and compelling take on the oft-told tale of oil wealth, petroviolence, and the so-called curse of oil dependency by reinterpreting the colonial and postcolonial history of Bolivia through the country's relation to natural gas, what he calls the gaseous state. Gustafson draws together the temporalities, spaces, and excesses of a world built through the exploitation of gas and in so doing takes the reader on an exhilarating ride through US imperialism, the Bolivian state, Indigenous territoriality, the hard-edged world of pipelines, wellheads, violent corporate capital, and of course the rise and fall of Evo Morales. A book for our time.”
-- Michael Watts, Class of 63 Professor, University of California, Berkeley
“Bolivia in the Age of Gas is without a doubt the definitive account of the Bolivian petrostate and its subjects. It makes important contributions to anthropology, to Latin American studies, and to the emergent interdisciplinary literature in energy humanities. It is also a true pleasure to read, the rare scholarly page-turner that conveys critical analytical insights in terms and ethnographic moments that will captivate readers of all backgrounds.”
-- Dominic Boyer, author of Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations ix Note on Labels and Language xiii Preface and Acknowledgments xv Introduction. Gaseous State 1 Part One. Time 1. Heroes of Chaco 27 2. Imperial Maneuvers 50 3. Las nalgas of YPFB 69 Part Two. Space 4. Gas Lock-In 97 5. Bulls and Beauty Queens 125 6. Just a Few Lashes 152 Part Three. Excess 7. Requiem for the Dead 179 8. Gas Work 202 9. Quarrel over the Excess 223 Postscript. Bolivia 2020 247 Notes 255 References 271 Index 293
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE