Life in Oil: Cofn Survival in the Petroleum Fields of Amazonia

About this book

Oil is one of the worlds most important commodities but few people know how its extraction affects the residents of petroleum-producing regions. In the 1960s the Texaco corporation discovered crude in the territory of Ecuadors indigenous Cofn nation. Within a decade Ecuador had become a member of OPEC and the Cofn watched as their forests fell their rivers ran black and their bodies succumbed to new illnesses. In 1993 they became plaintiffs in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit that aims to compensate them for the losses they have suffered. Yet even in the midst of a tragic toxic disaster the Cofn have refused to be destroyed. While seeking reparations for oils assault on their lives they remain committed to the survival of their language culture and rainforest homeland. Life in Oil presents the compelling nuanced story of how the Cofn manage to endure at the center of Ecuadorian petroleum extraction. Michael L. Cepek has lived and worked with Cofn people for more than twenty years. In this highly accessible book he goes well beyond popular and academic accounts of their suffering to share the largely unknown stories that Cofn people themselves createthe ones they tell in their own language in their own communities and to one another and the few outsiders they know and trust. Their words reveal that life in oil is a form of slow confusing violence for some of the earths most marginalized yet resilient inhabitants.