Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean

Offshore Attachments explores how the management of sex and race transformed the Caribbean into a crucial site in the global oil economy, with the Dutch islands of Curaçao and Aruba housing the world's largest oil refineries. Historian Chelsea Schields demonstrates how Caribbean people embraced and challenged efforts to alter intimate behavior in service to the energy economy, narrating a surprising story of how racialized concern with sex shaped hydrocarbon industries.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 18 April 2023
Publisher: University of California Press

Offshore Attachments delves into the intricate dynamics that shaped the Caribbean into a pivotal region in the global oil economy. By the mid-twentieth century, the Dutch islands of Curaçao and Aruba emerged as the world's largest oil refineries, driven by a massive industrial experiment. Oil corporations and political authorities sought to exploit intimacy, circumventing laws regulating sex, reproduction, and the family, in their pursuit of maximum profits and the transformation of Caribbean subjects into citizens. Historian Chelsea Schields sheds light on how Caribbean individuals both embraced and challenged these efforts to alter intimate behavior in service to the energy economy. Schields' research spans from Caribbean oil towns to European metropolises, exploring topics such as sex work, contraception, kinship, and the constitution of desire. Through her captivating narrative, she unveils a surprising story of how racialized concerns with sex shaped hydrocarbon industries as the age of oil met its demise alongside the decline of empire.

Weight: 544g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520390805