ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the pro-oil sands’ public relations campaign from the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Though supporters of oil sands’ development claim that such campaigns are motivated by the need to fight misinformation and “get the facts out there,” this chapter argues that their rhetorical appeal is less factual than emotive and symbolic. Drawing upon print and televisual examples from the current pro-oil sands public relations campaign, this chapter uses a Lacanian framework to examine how oil is presented in these ads as a fantastic object, or what Lacan terms the “petit objet a’,” whose possession promises to heal all personal, social, and environmental ills and bring about an ecstatic state of wholeness. In this light, I argue that countering the pro-oil sands rhetorical discourse may rest less in factual rebuttal than in what Lacan called “traversing the fantasy” by disclosing the symbolic and libidinal frameworks upon which they rest.