ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews concepts of materiality, commodification, and metabolism of commodity production, and considers their utility in understanding the extensive spatial reach of fossil fuels. It examines the complex infrastructure developed by the petrochemical revolution to secure the flow of natural gas into Complejo Petroquimico Ana Maria Campos (CPAMC) for the production of plastics and highlights the way in which this infrastructure is embedded in territories and local communities. The chapter provides a detailed description of Petrocasas and emphasizes the social and political rationale of this project as a government's attempt to solve the housing deficit in Venezuela. It argues that the social and ecological tensions associated with the creation of Petrocasas are obscured by the commodification process itself. The chapter focuses on the chlor-alkali plant in CPAMC and describes the metabolic process involved in the production of PVC to create Petrocasas.
