ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the expansion of the Italian national hydrocarbon agency, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (Eni), in early postcolonial Africa as the product of power ideologies entangled with historical, geographic, and social circumstances that affected lived experiences and geopolitical dynamics across vast territories. Through the inquiry of three sets of oil infrastructures with different material presence and degrees of visibility—the Tema refinery (Ghana), the Tanzania-Zambia Mafuta pipeline (Zambia and Tanzania), and the Agenzia Generale Italiana Petroli (Agip) Tanzania distribution network—this chapter reveals a series of inconsistencies in Eni’s narratives of decolonization and energy self-reliance. It exposes the violence and the impact of Eni’s seemingly neutral operations on African territories and societies. It does so by scrutinizing the material and spatial impact of oil infrastructures, but also inquiring how they have been represented and narrated by Eni, African governments, African artists, and workers. Textual and visual archival sources are corroborated by oral accounts of those who experienced the everyday life of oil infrastructures in the longue durée.
