The small matter of suing Chevron / Suzana Sawyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sawyer, Suzana, 1961- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Peasants--Ecuador--Social conditions.

Indigenous peoples--Ecuador--Social conditions.

Environmental racism.

Petroleum industry and trade--Environmental aspects--Ecuador.

Petroleum industry and trade--Health aspects--Ecuador.

Chevron Corporation (2005)--Trials, litigation, etc.

ChevronTexaco (Firm)--Trials, litigation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 400 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2022.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"The Small Matter of Suing Chevron tells the story of the infamously complex litigation revolving around the aftermath of Chevron's oil drilling in Ecuador's Lago Agrio area. Suzana Sawyer offers both an ethnographic account of the harms communities faced due to Chevron's dumping practices as well as a scientific analysis that reveals the unstable qualities of benzene, a known carcinogen found in gasoline. Sawyer provides a reformulation of chemical elements as "dynamic probabilities" instead of "definite stable substances," emphasizing that an element's behavior is contingent on its environment. Thus, she uses both literal and figurative interpretations of benzene and its properties as a way of discussing Chevron and the Lago Agrio region. The book's final section narrates and analyzes the court trials between Chevron and the nation of Ecuador. Ultimately, Sawyer highlights how business corporations, such as Chevron, claim to be morally superior agents while producing violent material consequences for communities and environments, and how these contradictions are exemplary of liberal democracy."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Chemical agency : of hydrocarbons and toxicity

Exposure's orbitals : of epidemiology and calculation

Alchemical deals : of contracts and their seepage

Radical inspections : of sensorium as toxic proposition

Plurivalent rendering : of prehension becoming precaution

Bonding veridictum : of corporate capacity and technique.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode

ISBN:

1-4780-1533-0

1-4780-2257-4

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access