Fracking the National Ethos: The Pressures of Globalization on Sovereignty and Justice in Will Ferguson’s419

Abstract

This article looks at the award-winning 2012 novel 419, by Calgary-based author Will Ferguson, through the lens of fracking, understood as a trope for pressure that may destabilize received understandings, releasing new awareness, knowledge, and political action. I argue that 419 is an inquiry into the strain that increasing global connectivity and unfettered late capitalism exert on the modern concept of sovereignty and on contemporary notions of justice. I also suggest that Ferguson’s use of the thriller genre introduces an innovative move by resisting both retributive and restorative justice resolutions. Furthermore, Ferguson’s novel functions as a petrofiction by placing oil at the centre of the discussion about the intersection of sovereignty, justice, and ethics, while offering a scathing critique of how energy resources around the world are managed through the exercise of bio- and necro-power. The novel is thus firmly anchored in contemporary debates about bio- and necro-politics that revolve round Michel Foucault’s unfinished project on governmentality. Consequently, my analysis draws on a variety of philosophical theories that reveal contesting understandings of sovereignty (Foucault, Montag, Mbembe, Banerjee) and humanity (Agamben, Butler) vis-à-vis the socio-cultural aspects of oil and energy both in Canada and in the world (Ghosh, Szeman, Gordon).