ABSTRACT
This chapter brings into light the wide-ranging consequences of petrolisation on Kurdish society. Based on a discussion on environmental imaginaries and petro-capitalism, extractivism is seen as a tool of social control. Two case studies illustrating the dispossession of rural communities in remote areas due to extractive projects are presented. It is argued that ruling elites have strengthened dependency relationships through the establishment of the oil economy with the purpose of weakening civil society and bankrolling one-party rule within each territorial constituency. The transnational capitalist relations between local enclaves and the global economy are explained as the most distinctive characteristic of the petroleum industry. Grassroots resistance against the state-corporate nexus, however, draws attention to the emergence of alternative environmental imaginaries rejecting the commodification of nature. This suggests rethinking Kurdistan (and possibly the Middle East as a whole) as a cultural space crossed by multiple notions of development and sustainability. Furthermore, the ways the political community looks at nature is connected to alternative models of governance.
