Petro-fied: Oil Town Uncertainty – Creating a Unique Identity Despite Undefined Futures in Fort McMurray
Date
2018-10-25
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Abstract
Fort McMurray’s history as a resource town has resulted in its various changing identities over the years with historical roots as a fur trading post, lumber and salt processing mine, and freshwater fish plant prior to its current identity as an oil town. The wildfires of 2016 and current depressed global oil prices have led many to speculate about Fort McMurray’s future existence and growth. In this thesis, I explore the topic of uncertainty in Fort McMurray and its influence on the sense of community in Fort McMurray. Uncertainty is often mitigated through the control of social and labour time. As the division of labour in Fort McMurray is often gendered, uncertainty and its temporal mitigations often become masculinized or feminized. I also examine uncertainty in the context of the future of the community of Fort McMurray and the future of my informants with regards to the sacrifices and decisions they choose to make for a future-anterior approach. However, it is also this uncertainty that allows individuals to form unique identities found only in Fort McMurray because of competing interpretations of the idea of community. There are multiple experiences of Fort McMurray that are all valid and therefore no singular monopolized definition of community exists. The lack of conformity enables uncertainty about gender roles, a definitive future, and the very definition of community. This makes Fort McMurray unique in that it allows for multiple experiences of Fort McMurray and demonstrates that resource town life can be quite variable in contrast to the stereotypes portrayed by the media.
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oil town, Fort McMurray, resource town, Oil Sands, community, gender roles, uncertain futures
Citation
Ng, M. W. (2018). Petro-fied: Oil Town Uncertainty – Creating a Unique Identity Despite Undefined Futures in Fort McMurray (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/33229