PhD Oral Exam - Eva Crocker, Humanities

When studying for a doctoral degree (PhD), candidates submit a thesis that provides a critical review of the current state of knowledge of the thesis subject as well as the student’s own contributions to the subject. The distinguishing criterion of doctoral graduate research is a significant and original contribution to knowledge.

Once accepted, the candidate presents the thesis orally. This oral exam is open to the public.

Abstract

This thesis investigates Newfoundland and Labrador as a case study of extractivism and its cultural impacts, from the 1990s to the present day. Using Imre Szeman and Jennifer Wenzel’s definition of extractivism as the instrumentalization of nonhuman, nonrenewable nature to benefit a small segment of society, I look to art and visual culture to shed light on the cycle of extractivist projects in the province.

The theoretical framework for this thesis draws from the fields of the Energy Humanities, Anthropocene discourse and Queer Temporalities, to analyze three distinct eras of extractive projects in Newfoundland and Labrador, beginning with the collapse of the fishery in the early 1990s due to the introduction of large-scale local and international trawling, followed by the boom-and-bust of offshore oil extraction spanning from the late 1990s to the mid-2010s, and finally the construction of the Muskrat Falls hydro-electric dam and the Indigenous-led resistance to the project which peaked between 2015-2017.

My thesis is interdisciplinary not only in terms of its theoretical framework but also with regard to my methodology: the project combines analysis of contemporary Newfoundland art and visual culture, oral history testimony, an account of activism and independent journalism, as well as my own short fiction. Integrating fiction alongside art historical analysis and oral history is a way of providing an immersive and embodied sense of what it is like to live within Newfoundland’s boom-and-bust economy. My intention is to bring us closer to the truth of how extractivism functions and how it feels to live with it.