Articulations of ethics : energy worlds and moral selves

Funding: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 715146. I also gratefully acknowledge the funding I have received to carry out this research from the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2013-177) and the British Academy (EN150010).This chapter introduces the notion of ‘regimes of ethics’ to explore the diverse ways that ethics is articulated in corporate capitalism, particularly in industries that are involved in the extraction of natural resources such as oil and gas. I show how companies draw on corporate social responsibility frameworks as public-facing demonstrations of ethics for stakeholder engagement, while also generating greater company loyalty and pride among employees. While corporate social responsibility (CSR) provides an explicit corporate strategy, the professional codes of ethics that apply to engineering practices in the USA specifically anchor ethics in individual decision-making. Animated by a generally conservative, if not stultifying, ethos, engineering ethics sees practices such as whistleblowing and breaking ranks as epitomising individual ethical action. Co-existing with and sometimes challenging these two formal regimes of ethics are also industry actors’ own moral convictions. This third regime of ethics draws on my ethnographic research in the oil and gas industry in Colorado, USA. By discussing these various articulations of ethics, my aim is to take seriously formal rules and codes as well as industry actors’ own ethical sensibilities. I suggest that rather than existing as entrenched hardened moral worlds, these multiple and competing regimes of ethics indicate the underdetermined nature of ethical life.Publisher PD

Human predation and animal sociality : the transformational agency of ‘wolf people’ in Mongolia

This chapter examines the recent proliferation of ‘wolf people’ following the advent of the Mongolian gold rush. By analysing ethnographic and historical material on the position of wolves in Mongolian cosmology, I demonstrate how these beings call into question the relationship between animality and humanity. Concealed in human bodies and destined to a solitary life of greed, ‘wolf people’ challenge the human potential for peaceful and productive living. Demonstrating the importance of moving away from a human-centred perspective on morality, I argue that relations between humans and animals reveal how personhood is a matter of persuasion.Postprin

Exploring the anthropology of energy : ethnography, energy and ethics

This special issue emerged from the 2016 Energy Ethics conference that co-editors High and Smith hosted at the University of St. Andrews. The authors acknowledge the generous funders of that conference, including the British Academy through the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (BARSEA—EN 150010), the US National Science Foundation through the Cultivating Cultures of Ethical STEM program (Award 1540298), the Russell Trust of University of St. Andrews (Award ST1513), and the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies, Department of Social Anthropology, University of St. Andrews.This Special Issue explores the anthropology of energy by highlighting the unique contributions an ethnographic perspective offers to understanding energy and ethics. We propose the term energy ethics to capture the ways in which people understand and ethically evaluate energy. The term encompasses the multiple and varied ways that people experience, conceptualize, and evaluate matters of energy. Out of the diversity of fieldsites, research methods, conceptual frameworks, and disciplinary backgrounds that characterize the articles in the special issue, three clear themes emerge. The first is that multiple, conflicting understandings of energy animate how people engage it in their everyday lives and work. The second is that diversity exists in how people make ethical judgments about the role of energy in the types of 'good societies' they imagine for themselves. Finally, the articles underscore the significance of government interests and public policy for shaping people's experiences of and ethical judgments about energy. These perspectives reveal the value of research that is attuned to the ways in which people view the world and the place of energy in it, opening up space to identify and reflect on our taken-for-granted assumptions.PostprintPeer reviewe

Introduction : the ethical constitution of energy dilemmas

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 715146. The authors also acknowledge the funding received to carry out the research from the Leverhulme Trust (ECF‐2013‐177), the British Academy (EN150010 and VF1101988), the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation (1540298).Growing anthropological research on energy provides critical explorations into the cross‐cultural ways in which people perceive and use this fundamental resource. We argue that two dominant frameworks animate that literature: a critique of corporate and state power, and advocacy for energy transitions to less carbon‐intensive futures. These frameworks have narrowed the ethical questions and perspectives that the discipline has considered in relation to energy. This is because they are animated by judgements that can implicitly shape research agendas or sometimes result in strong accusations that obscure how our interlocutors themselves may consider the rightness and wrongness of energy resources and the societal infrastructures of which they form a part. We propose a more capacious approach to studying energy ethics that opens up energy dilemmas to ethnographic inquiry. As such, we show how energy dilemmas constitute important sites for the generation of anthropological knowledge, encouraging more insightful and inclusive discussions of the place of energy in human and more‐than‐human lives.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Wealth and envy in the Mongolian gold mines

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Dangerous fortunesthe informal gold mining sector in Mongolia

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