Reckoning with Harm: The Toxic Relations of Oil in Amazonia

Reckoning with Harm is a powerful ethnographic study that demonstrates the need for a relational, place-based, and contingent understanding of harm and toxicity in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It explores the ways in which harm from oil extraction is entangled with daily life and the tensions surrounding efforts to verify and redress it. Fiske argues that harm is both a relationship and an animating feature of relationships in this place and that a contingent understanding is needed to contemplate what comes next when living in a toxic world.

Format: Hardback
Length: 280 pages
Publication date: 17 October 2023
Publisher: University of Texas Press

Reckoning with Harm is a powerful ethnographic study that delves into the harmful consequences of oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Spanning fifty years of settler colonization and industrialization, Amelia Fiske explores the intricate relationships between harm and daily life. Through her immersive fieldwork in forest courts, oily waste pits, farms, and toxic tours, Fiske uncovers the ways in which oil-related harm is intertwined with the everyday experiences of the people living in the Amazon region.

She challenges the narrow, technocratic notions of evidence, toxicity, and responsibility that have hindered attempts to address harm from the oil industry in Ecuador. Fiske builds on the work of her collaborators to contest the state and oil company's assertion that harm is primarily chemical in nature and demonstrates that harm must be reframed as relational to account for the unremediated contamination of the past while advocating for broader forms of accountability in the present.

Fiske argues that harm is not merely a static phenomenon but is a dynamic relationship that permeates all aspects of life in the Amazon. She theorizes that harm is both a relationship and an animating feature of relationships in this place, a contingent understanding that is essential for contemplating what lies ahead in a toxic world.

Reckoning with Harm offers a profound insight into the complex web of harm and its implications for the lives of the people in the Ecuadorian Amazon. It highlights the need for a relational, place-based, and contingent understanding of harm and toxicity. By challenging the dominant narratives and advocating for a more holistic approach, Fiske contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the environmental and social consequences of oil extraction and other forms of industrialization.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781477327777