Oil Flux and Unrest

In this chapter, we summarize the book and our argument that the spaces in which oil extraction continues expanding are sites upon which ideologies of the state and citizenship have been projected. These are spaces in which sensitive ecologies and the people who depend upon them are being compelled via state action or lack thereof down one of two paths: the adoption of a leftist/populist understanding of, and participation in, the structures, practices, and subjectivities of the modern, liberal state; or relegation to further marginalization that borders on obsolescence or even extermination. We discuss the widespread protests in Ecuador in 2015 against the Correa administration, culminating in the mid-August “March for Dignity and Life” that brought together diverse civil-society organizations voicing their concerns over reduced public spending, increasing authoritarianism, rights violations associated with extractive projects in the Amazon, and constitutional amendments that—among other things—ended presidential term limits. Ecuador’s political economy is at crossroads with the drop in international oil prices and treatment of any challenges to the Correa administration as antithetical to the collective good as defined by the state.