Extractivism facilitates the exploitation, control, and export of raw materials to fuel industrial development. It removes resources from the land, while dislocating any ‘benefits’ to a multi-national investor class. Extractivism is a social relation; it reflects a society that extracts and it’s introduction makes all of life a potential resource. It reduces an intricate web of relationships between human and non-human into commodities within a centralized system of production and circulation. In a deranged collaboration, the state and capital mutually reinforce their domination by enabling and facilitating extractivism through legalistic mechanisms. Accumulation through dispossession of land (and its relationships) has always been central to the state-making project of Canada.
Refusing extractivism means refusing to subordinate land and human activity to profit and the logics of capital. Extractivism is war; our only response is revolt.
We once again find ourselves situated within another pipeline struggle- this time against Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT). While a war is most definitely being waged, our role isn’t to engage with the state militarily, but to disorganize its ability to function logistically: to impede the development of global resource markets; and to produce conditions that prevent the circulation of resource commodities. Our proposal moves away from the symbolic: the politics of recognition and any form of representation. As our mentors remind us, any demand addressed to an interlocutor is defeat. Let us instead narrow our focus on disrupting the logistics of extractivism. We think this means the spreading of social revolt: an uncontrollable refusal of extractivism as a way of life, and the spread of self-organized action against this project.
In the spirit of understanding the logic and logistics of extractivism, we’ve provided a ‘map’. This map is not a set of directions, but a survey of the terrain we find ourselves entangled within. PRGT can itself be seen as a logistical project: to accelerate the flow and transportation of gas; and to increase access to new markets. The development of the pipeline and terminal each require their own logistics: to secure investors, purchasers, and contractors; to deforest right of ways; to build roads, bridges, man camps, compressor stations and terminals; to transport materials, machines, pipe, and men; to secure their project with surveillance, security, cops, and legislative tools. This map is just a beginning: for developing further research; for material intervention; for a world without PRGT and a world without extractivism.
Background:
Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) is a pipeline project running from Hudson’s Hope to an unbuilt floating terminal on Nisga’a coastline called Ksi Lisims. Gas is extracted from the Montney Formation, a shale gas formation requiring hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Industry must first inject a high pressure fluid into the shale formations to create thousands of little cracks to allow for the gas to flow. Gas is then extracted and shipped via pipeline. The gas intended to be shipped to Ksi Lisims will then be supercooled to -160°C to convert it to liquefied natural gas before being loaded onto LNG tankers to be shipped to Asia.
Continue reading “Canada: Against Extractivism: PRGT and its Actor”
