Commodity Fetishism, Industrial Religion, and Fossil Fuel Extractivism

This paper theorizes contemporary discourse about fossil fuel extractivism, arguing that various enculturated ideas about the social power of petroleum are used to legitimate and maintain unjust systems of resource exploitation. The argument is constructed in three parts. First, I discuss ‘commodity fetishism’ and the relationship between colonial systems of resource extractivism and the development of racialized classifications of religion. Second, I consider “industrial religion” as an interpretive frame for contemporary discourses that attribute supernatural powers fossil fuels. Third, I conjoin these two strands of analysis and conclude by suggesting some of the implications for environmental humanities scholarship on extractivism.