Utopias of oil : private equity and entrepreneurial ambition in the U.S. oil and gas industry
Abstract
At a time of a "private equity oil rush," this essay explores how oil industry entrepreneurs with ambitions of setting up their own oil-production companies are encouraged to "dream big"- yet are ultimately disciplined and let down- by private equity finance in the state of Colorado in the United States. Motivated by a desire to "do oil differently," these start-ups articulate utopian visions that draw on inequalities in extractive economies to promote an ethos of care and inclusion. I argue that while economic imaginations are commonly seen to offer alternatives to and critiques of capitalism, it is important also to attend to articulations of capitalist utopia. As private equity has come to form a secreted infrastructure that underlies much of the world's financial system and encourages entrepreneurial optimism and euphoria, I explore how the contemporary life of capitalism stimulates attitudes to wealth creation that remain markedly conventional and unadventurous.
Citation
High , MM 2022 , ' Utopias of oil : private equity and entrepreneurial ambition in the U.S. oil and gas industry ' , Cultural Anthropology , vol. 37 , no. 4 , pp. 738-763 . https://doi.org/10.14506/ca37.4.06
Publication
Cultural Anthropology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0886-7356Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: In addition to the funding I have received from the European Research Council (grant agreement No. 715146), I also gratefully acknowledge funding for this research from the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2013-177) and the British Academy (EN150010).Collections
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