The papers in this session begin with place and consider the ways extraction and religion interact in the context of particular geographies. Continuing conversations from 2023 EER sessions on methodological and epistemological extractivism, this session features scholars each approaching extractivism in relation to a particular place. Panelists employ a variety of methods – textual, ethnographic, and historical – to analyze the imbrications of extractive economies and religious life. In addition to presenting their research, each panelist will offer specific reflections on their methods and the ways these approaches situate their work in relation to land, local inhabitants, local lifeways, and extractivist practices. Stephanie Gray draws on firsthand testimony and theoretical framing to examine the entwinement of settler colonialism, natural resource extraction, and human exploitation in the West Bank. Oriane Lavole’s research on the Tibetan Buddhist Treasure Tradition draws on a case study of Chokgyur Lingpa’s 1866 revelation at Sengö Yamtso to begin to articulate an ethics of extraction. And Emma Gerritsen draws on oral histories of 20th century Appalachian coal camps and villages to analyze the role of land in lived religion.
One indelible mark of this era for fossil states was the confounding “problem” of Islam, which seemed to confound the disciplinary techniques of secularism—that is until the fateful fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1920. For John R. Mott, this combined with the discovery of oil in Persia (with the assistance of U.S. missionaries) and the larger crashing of the industrial West into “the Moslem world” signaled a Muslim downfall and an opportunity for “Protestant Powers” to finally remake the world. Meziane, too, has his finger on the pulse of 19th century Orientalism and the role of fossil fuel in the acceleration of 19th century imperialism. But rather than my Protestant, mainly Anglophone archives, Meziane offers an Arab/North African perspective on the colonial dimensions of the Anthropocene.