ABSTRACT
The petroleum industry is a tool of power as is generally intended in a rather minimal sense, though it can certainly be a source of authority. Conceptually, order is wider than regime or system, yet more specific than society or community: it gives an idea of regularity in the disposition of things and patterns that organise social life. However, the emergence of the extractive regime came with a paradox insofar as it provided incentives for the de-territorialisation of economic activities, or rather the recomposition of the bulk of the economy at the scale of foreign energy operators, which are notably entrenched into enclaves detached from the local economy. In other words, the case study is relevant to understanding extractivism in general, though findings cannot be generalised automatically sight unseen. All in all, the seven considerations summarised here spell out the constitutive role of oil environments in the (re)-making of political communities.
