'Oil, Power and Dependency: Global and Local Realities of the Offshore Oil Industry in Newfoundland and Labrador' is a research project directed by Peter Sinclair at Memorial University of Newfoundland (Sociology) and Sean Cadigan (History). Funding comes from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2005-8).

Summary

We examine the emergence of the oil and gas industry in Newfoundland and Labrador  from the 1960s to the present. We place the local industry in its broader context as part of a regional and even global commodity network, showing the interplay of local actors and environmental conditions in this setting. We evaluate the beneficiaries of oil and gas development in a peripheral area of advanced capitalism that has long been dependent on extraction of natural resources. Fundamentally, we are concerned with examining relations of power in a critical case of oil and gas development, one that is of practical importance for the future of the province and Canadian energy production, as well as to the industry itself... more