Disrupted Disclosure: The Politics of Visibility and Surveillance in the Extractive Industries

While projects of governance by transparency have become widespread over the past decades, theyare usually investigated and theorized in isolation from the wider field of visibility and surveillancein which they are embedded. Building on theories of governance, visibility and surveillance, and onongoing research in the extractive industries and social movements, this work-in-progress sets outto examine (a) why and how transparency has been constructed and mobilized in recentinternational attempts to regulate the extractive industries, specifically oil and gas companies; (b)how companies’ normal appearances become challenged through disruptive disclosures in mediaenvironments characterized by multiple levels of visibility, with companies both observing andbeing observed by civil society groups that criticize them; (c) why and how the mobilization aroundtransparency and ensuing practices of surveillance produce new forms of governing, potentiallywidening the space of manoeuvring for corporations.