Waiting for the Ark

This study explores the question: How do state and civil society actors construct and shape Guyana’s emerging oil and gas industry amidst the climate crisis? Specifically, I seek to analyze how (a) discourses about the past and present, such as colonial histories and ongoing coloniality, shape developmentalist visions of the present and future of the oil and gas industry and (b) how state and civil society actors create and contest visions about how the present and future of climate catastrophe shapes managing oil extraction and development. To date, I have started to address the first question in my completed master’s thesis, which analyzed legal and judicial records from court cases, development plans, and speeches from 2019 to 2023. The study found that the state leverages temporal imaginaries to accelerate petro-state legitimacy, and anti-extractivist activists mobilize the “politics of time” through delay and anticipation to subvert the status quo of fossil-fueled extraction With the support of the Tinker Grant, I conducted archival research at the Walter Rodney National Archive where I collected material not only from British colonial newspapers but also from the “Bauxite Box,” a collection of ephemera that provides valuable insights for comparative historical analysis of extractivism in Guyana. At the Parliamentary Library, I obtained internal national assembly debates on the Environmental Protection Act (1996) and over 500 pages of internal Natural Resource Committee debates from 2015–2018, covering the critical period of oil discovery and initial presentations with Exxon. In addition, I conducted a site visit to the under-construction Gas-to-Energy pipeline and interviewed a worker involved in building the pipeline’s roads, generating insights into the infrastructural dimensions of oil development. I also held meetings with civil society organizations such as Policy Forum Guyana and with industry leaders, laying the groundwork for future interviews and collaborations. Further, I was able to network and attend a lecture at the George Walcott Lecture Theatre at the University of Guyana on the country’s energy matrix alongside leaders from energy companies. Through these visits I established relationships with faculty at the University of Guyana and the Energy Diplomacy Institute to build longer-term academic collaborations. One practical lesson learned is that researchers need to provide a formal letter of introduction at the Walter Rodney National Archives, even though the website suggests otherwise. Fortunately, the process was quick and did not obstruct the research. More broadly, Guyana is a small society where trust and reputation matter significantly; researchers should be intentional and transparent about their goals and reasons for being there in order to build relationships with organizations and institutions. The findings from this research will enrich a comparative and historical understanding of extractivism in Guyana by connecting colonial resource histories to contemporary oil development. They will also support my dissertation project, which examines how temporal imaginaries, such as acceleration, deferral, and anticipation, shape Guyana’s late-petrostate politics. More immediately, the relationships forged during this phase of research provide a foundation I will continue to build upon during my next field visit in February, when I plan to attend the Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo and spend time interviewing with community organizations central to my study.