Doctoral Dissertation Research: A History of Oil Infrastructures: Commodity Production and Consumption

该奖项支持一项关于石油基础设施历史的博士论文研究项目，即旨在运输石油的指定社会技术组合，通过石油驱动的运输技术实现其他商品的交换，并吸收和引导石油衍生的资本流动。该项目提出了三个核心问题：石油基础设施如何产生和塑造国家空间？基础设施如何重新分配机构并为政治项目注入动力？基础设施如何成为资本积累的竞争场所？该项目以最近对科学技术研究的贡献为基础，试图利用各种档案资源来检查六个石油基础设施项目来回答这些问题。研究人员计划将该项目的结果作为同行评审的文章发表，他将利用他的论文作为专着的初稿，供学者、政策制定者和公众使用。他还计划利用这些结果在会议和同行评审的政策场所接触政策受众。 这项关于石油基础设施的研究有望为科学技术研究的三个不同子领域做出新的贡献：技术史、环境史和基础设施研究。它从对环境历史中的商品生产和消费以及采掘业研究的传统关注转向对将石油工业联系在一起的能源、商品和资本流动的分析。它有意将物质和资本流动纳入同一分析框架，以便更完整地描述历史上构成石油工业的社会技术网络，并更好地理解石油财富分配斗争的重要性。随着脱碳化在全球范围内的推进，围绕旨在运输和提炼石油、促进石油驱动的贸易以及吸收或引导石油财富流动的基础设施而建立的空间将需要面对此类基础设施所产生的动力和路径依赖，以及迫在眉睫的基础设施废弃和资本外逃的前景。这项研究将帮助公民和政策制定者做出有关能源政策的历史明智决策。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports a doctoral dissertation research project on the history of infrastructures of oil, meaning the designate socio-technical assemblages designed to transport oil, to enable the exchange of other commodities via petroleum-powered transportation technologies, and to absorb and direct flows of capital derived from oil. The project asks three core questions: How do oil infrastructures produce and shape national space? How do infrastructures redistribute agency and imbue political projects with momentum? And how do infrastructures serve as contested sites of capital accumulation? Building on recent contributions to Science and Technology Studies, this project attempts to answer these questions using a diverse array of archival resources to examine six oil infrastructure projects. The researcher plans to publish the results of this project as peer-reviewed articles, and he will use his dissertation as the initial draft of a book monograph for academics, policymakers, and members of the general public. He also plans to use these results to reach out to policy audiences at conferences and in peer-reviewed policy venues.This research on oil infrastructures promises to make novel contributions to three distinct subfields of Science and Technology Studies: History of Technology, Environmental History, and Infrastructure Studies. It shifts from a conventional focus on commodity production and consumption within environmental history and studies of extractive industries toward an analysis of the flows of energy, commodities, and capital that tie together the oil industry. It intentionally brings material and capital flows into the same analytical frame in order to provide a more complete account of the socio-technical networks that historically constituted the oil industry, and to better understand the materiality of struggles over the distribution of oil wealth. As decarbonization advances worldwide, spaces built around infrastructures designed to transport and refine oil, facilitate petroleum-powered trade, and absorb or direct flows of oil wealth will need to confront the momentum and path dependency that such infrastructures have produced, as well as looming prospects of infrastructural abandonment and capital flight. This research will aid citizens and policymakers in making historically informed decisions about energy policy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.