TY - BOOK ID - 101893116 TI - The small matter of suing Chevron PY - 2022 SN - 1478022574 1478017953 1478092610 1478015330 PB - Durham : Duke University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography KW - South America KW - contamination KW - corporation KW - environment KW - Indigenous peoples KW - law KW - resource extraction KW - science KW - Peasants KW - Environmental racism. KW - Petroleum industry and trade KW - Social conditions. KW - Environmental aspects KW - Health aspects KW - Chevron Corporation (2005) KW - ChevronTexaco (Firm) KW - Trials, litigation, etc. KW - Energy industries KW - Oil industries KW - Racism KW - Ethnology KW - Peasantry KW - Agricultural laborers KW - Rural population KW - Marks (Medieval land tenure) KW - Villeinage KW - Chevron Texaco KW - ChevronTexaco Corporation KW - Chevron Texaco Corporation KW - Chevron Corporation KW - Texaco, Inc. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:101893116 AB - "The Small Matter of Suing Chevron tells the story of the infamously complex litigation revolving around the aftermath of Chevron's oil drilling in Ecuador's Lago Agrio area. Suzana Sawyer offers both an ethnographic account of the harms communities faced due to Chevron's dumping practices as well as a scientific analysis that reveals the unstable qualities of benzene, a known carcinogen found in gasoline. Sawyer provides a reformulation of chemical elements as "dynamic probabilities" instead of "definite stable substances," emphasizing that an element's behavior is contingent on its environment. Thus, she uses both literal and figurative interpretations of benzene and its properties as a way of discussing Chevron and the Lago Agrio region. The book's final section narrates and analyzes the court trials between Chevron and the nation of Ecuador. Ultimately, Sawyer highlights how business corporations, such as Chevron, claim to be morally superior agents while producing violent material consequences for communities and environments, and how these contradictions are exemplary of liberal democracy."-- ER -