Understanding Contested Energy Spaces

Energy spaces have always been contested. A series of bitter disputes between extractive companies, host governments and local communities in recent years have led to heavy losses for investors and threatened the development prospects of many resource-rich countries. The management of tensions and risks around resource extraction is more or less the modus operandi of the extractive industries, just as fierce opposition to them seems to be a modus vivendi for local communities and NGOs all over the globe. In this chapter, the author develops an understanding of the complex characteristics of contested energy spaces as scaled and assembled; being both bountiful emptiness and cultural spectacle.