Lecture | COGLOSS lecture
Fossil Empire: An Environmental History of Oil and Coal in Southern Sumatra, 1921-1942
- Date
- Wednesday 16 October 2024
- Time
- Series
- COGLOSS seminars 2024-2025
- Location
-
Johan Huizinga
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden - Room
- 2.60
Marin Kuijt will be giving a talk about part of his current research titled 'Fossil Empire: An Environmental History of Oil and Coal in Southern Sumatra, 1921-1942'. The talk focuses on the environmental history of fossil extraction - oil and coal - in Jambi and Palembang in the first half of the twentieth century and how the activity brought toxic ramifications to the local people and environments and how it has shaped climate change and Indonesia in terms of its economy. For more information of the talk, please see the abstract below.
The session will take place on 16 October from 15:00 to 17:00 at the Conference Room (2.60) in the Huizinga Building, Leiden. No registration needed. Please save the date and join us on that day!
Abstract
Colonial Indonesia was one of the world's first oil regions and the country continues to be an important oil producer today. Shell, one of the most powerful oil companies, was founded there. The rise of oil extraction (and coal mining) in the colonial era shaped Indonesia’s history, steering the country's economy onto a fossil-fueled path. In this talk, I examine what the rise of fossil extraction meant on the ground, with a focus on the colonial environmental history of oil and coal extraction in Jambi and Palembang. By drawing on material from Indonesian and Dutch archives, as well as a visit to the region, I explore the ways in which extraction shaped the landscapes of Southern Sumatra. The talk will show how the extraction of fossil energy from deep within the earth caused immediate toxic effects for workers, local populations, and the environment, while also emphasizing how, over time, this extraction contributed to climate change and locked Indonesia into an unsustainable, fossil economy.
About the instructor
Marin Kuijt is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School of Historical Studies, University of Amsterdam. His project ‘Colonial Carbon: How Oil and Gas Extraction shaped the Netherlands and its Empire’ focusses on the political economy and environmental history of hydrocarbon extraction in colonial Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Netherlands.
