Colonial Capitalism in the North Sea

Colonial capitalism is used as a conceptual lens to explore how colonial capitalist logics, practices and actors provided the basis for the development of the North Sea into a frontier zone of energy extraction frontier during the later half of the 20^th century and into the 21^st century during a time of decolonization in the Global South (Appel et al., 2015; Garavini, 2022; Hein, 2021; Mitchell, 2013; Thompson, 2022; M. Watts, 2012; M. J. Watts, 2019).

Applying the concept of colonial capitalism to the history of energy expropriation and exploitation in the North Sea allows us to highlight not only why the North Sea became a new energy frontier in the post-WW II world order, but to demonstrate how capital, knowledge, and technologies from colonial enterprises were absolutely central to the development of oil and gas in the North Sea. The motivation to apply the concept of Colonial Capitalism also derives from a bewilderment of how narratives of North Sea oil and gas have been articulated as cleaner, greener, and more equitable than oil expropriation in the Global South. From the perspective of Norway in particular, North Sea Oil and Gas is argued to be the better fossil fuel alternative far away from the environmentally destructive, authoritarian, and human rights violating oil states of the Global South.

These arguments for the continuation of offshore oil and gas activities on the Norwegian continental shelf are exemplary of how racist colonial legacies are present in the current debates where Norway and the other countries around the North Sea attempt to position their activities as “better” than other oil and gas sites in the Global South, North America (tar sands & fracking), and Russia. Yet, our central argument is that the North Sea activities are deeply embedded in colonial logics and practices and there is an urgent need to rethink the North Sea as an energy frontier, not as independent of and in opposition to oil and gas exploitation and expropriation in the former European colonies, but rather as intimately connected with the practices and logics of exploitation and expropriation developed and implemented first in the colonies.

The research initiative is a platform for multidisciplinary research across the social sciences and humanities that explores these continuities of colonial logics, practices and actors in the development of North Sea energy extraction past, present and future. We are always open to collaboration. For further information please contact Associate Professor Anders Riel Müller. anders.riel@uis.no