ABSTRACT
“Heading Offshore” situates Cold Water Oil as a timely intervention at a moment of intense uncertainty. In the wake of the social and economic upheavals prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are making crucial choices about whether to seize opportunities to build greener economies or to maintain the fossil fuel status quo. The Introduction builds a case for paying particular attention in this context to the past, present, and future of offshore oil and gas production in the North Atlantic and Arctic regions–regions that are expensive to develop, ecologically fragile, and already disproportionately affected by climate change. Polack and Farquharson note that scholars have made only sporadic efforts to examine socio-cultural figurations of offshore oil and gas to date and position Cold Water Oil as an attempt to redress this gap. They also outline how the volume engages with the interdisciplines of environmental humanities, energy humanities, and critical ocean studies. The Introduction concludes with brief summaries of contributions to the volume and details their respective engagements with the oceanic territories of Canada, Norway, the UK, Russia, the US, and the Iñupiat of Alaska.
