Bringing Shell and Friends of the Earth on stage: A one-act spectacle of oil spills in the Niger Delta

Abstract

• Oil spills in the Niger Delta are an exploitative and controversial phenomenon. • CSR practices are theatrical productions for an audience of spectators. • CSOs highlight inconsistencies in corporate disclosures as a political act. • Dialogic engagement demonstrates how CSR practices conceal a neoliberal agenda. This paper explores the spectacle of oil spills in the Niger Delta as a controversial dialogue between Royal Dutch Shell plc and the civil-society organization Friends of the Earth International (FoE). Using the theater metaphor, we create a one-act play as a spectacular production of dialogic engagement between Shell’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and an FoE shadow account. The paper reveals CSR practices as a contemporary manifestation of a disclosure spectacle, and shadow accounts as resistance in the form of parody. The study contributes to the theorizing of spectacle and adds to the discussion of resistance as a political act.