Blurring the Pipeline: Energizing an Account of the Urban

Abstract

This paper explores an energy development proposal that faces vibrant political resistance today. The proposal is Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline, one of several schemes to transport bitumen from the vast tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to tidewater. Although the Gateway proposal has attracted less international attention than projects such as Keystone XL, which would connect Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, this proposal is equally controversial and of critical concern for international political sociology not least because it is generating conflict between Canada and various First Nations that claim international status. In many respects the controversy illustrates the difference between “seeing like a state” (Scott 1998), as Enbridge and its supporters do, and seeing otherwise, as certain First Nations and other opponents do. Whether this seeing otherwise amounts to “seeing like a city” in Magnusson's (2011) sense is the issue explored here. The proposed pipeline would cut across “wilderness” rather than farmland, and it would terminate in a small place (Kitimat BC) that most people would call a town, rather than a city. The First Nations territories at stake are lightly populated for the most part, and they seem like the opposite of urban. So, how could “seeing like a city” be relevant in this case? I want to argue that it is deeply relevant, but for reasons that may not be apparent at first.