ABSTRACT
Oil remains one of the most ethically consequential commodities of the Anthropocene. In this chapter I argue that the invisibility of oil is an ethically charged phenomenon for two main reasons. First, the material disconnect with oil complements the cognitive–emotional reasons behind the inability to perceive climate change as a moral problem. Second, oil is selectively invisible. For those communities at the forefront of oil extraction, processing, transportation, and disposal, oil is an indispensable part of their everyday material experiences. I discuss the materiality of oil in the Anthropocene by drawing on the scholarship of new materialism, and suggest that creating spaces and moments for physical and/or imaginative encounters with oil may help in converting it from a morally neutral commodity into one having profound normative implications.
