Sean Field
Janine Hauer
Online
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with energy financiers in Houston, Texas, Sean Field explores how experts use a lexicon of models and metrics to conceptualize and construct allegories about future hydrocarbon projects and companies. He shows that allegorical narratives built with this lexicon advance a kind of energy ethics – distinguishing what is good and advocating for particular hydrocarbon futures. As the energy industry pivots toward renewables, he concludes that these metrics, models and allegories are coming to bear on new forms of extraction. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the financial and managerial processes on which extractive energy practices are imagined, valued and decided.