Failures of the Imagination - (Illuminations) by Elizabeth Barrios (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Despite the precariousness of an oil-based economy and the government's professed concern about climate change, a failure of imagination regarding alternatives continues to trap Venezuela in an oil-fueled status quo. Elizabeth Barrios examines the ideologies that helped normalize oil production in Venezuela, which further made oil-led development appear to be the only path to prosperity. Anchored in analyses of literature and media from the 1930s to the 2000s, Barrios argues that the creation of post-oil societies is not simply a question of economics or technology; it is a cultural issue that requires engaging the artistic imagination. She calls for new ways of reading that re-situate Venezuelan cultural production within a planetary ecology of oil. With interdisciplinary reach across energy humanities, environmental studies, and Latin American cultural analysis, Failures of the Imagination challenges readers to confront the narrative infrastructures of extractivism and to imagine life beyond the logic of oil.

Review Quotes

Failures of the Imagination is a groundbreaking ecological critique of Venezuelan culture. Elizabeth Barrios fearlessly explores what it would mean to loosen oil's hold on our collective imagination by developing new conceptual habits that allow us to confront the overlooked contexts, temporalities, and destructive violence at play in the oil economy. This is an indispensable book, not only for the outstanding quality of its research but also for its contribution toward broadening the scope of Venezuela studies.--Irina R. Troconis, Cornell University

Failures of the Imagination sets the record straight about how petro-narratives in Venezuela and beyond deform our own understanding of history, space, and nature. It is a timely and urgent call to reevaluate our position in relation not only to an extractivist global economy, but also to the material realities of a planetary ecology upon which it is reliant.--Sean Nesselrode Moncada, Rhode Island School of Design

About the Author

Elizabeth Barrios is associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at Albion College. Her research explores ecology, energy humanities, and Latin American and Latina/o literature and media, with an emphasis on Venezuela and its global diaspora.