Mental Oil Spills : Visualising Petroleumscapes to Uncover Petro-Hegemony in Stavanger, Norway
Tørnqvist, Bjørk and van Veelen, Bregje LU
(2026)
In Geo: Geography and Environment
13(1).
- Abstract
With the urgent need to address climate change, it is critical to confront fossil fuel dependency, particularly in the Global North. This requires confronting the spatio-cultural dimensions of fossil fuels, including how they have become embedded in those locations most closely tied to the fossil fuel industry. This article integrates insights from energy geographies with Hein's concept of petroleumscape to unpack how oil is embedded in Stavanger, Norway's oil capital. This article argues that attention must be paid to local petroleumscapes in order to better unpack how fossil fuel dependency becomes spatially embedded in locally differentiated ways, while simultaneously reinforcing a global petroleumscape. Through qualitative... (More)
With the urgent need to address climate change, it is critical to confront fossil fuel dependency, particularly in the Global North. This requires confronting the spatio-cultural dimensions of fossil fuels, including how they have become embedded in those locations most closely tied to the fossil fuel industry. This article integrates insights from energy geographies with Hein's concept of petroleumscape to unpack how oil is embedded in Stavanger, Norway's oil capital. This article argues that attention must be paid to local petroleumscapes in order to better unpack how fossil fuel dependency becomes spatially embedded in locally differentiated ways, while simultaneously reinforcing a global petroleumscape. Through qualitative participatory mapping, the article visualises perceived spatialities of petroleum by Stavanger's citizens. Empirically, the article finds that although petroleum is seen as at once hyper-visible and obscured, the city is characterised by a petro-omnipresence. Furthermore, the article finds that petroleum produces a particular social space through the funding of public goods, while also producing social inequalities that are experienced spatially through unequal housing patterns and leisure activities. These insights contribute to uncovering the obscured, yet all-encompassing influences of petroleum on social–ecological spaces in a highly oil-dependent and oil-producing region.
(Less)
- author
- Tørnqvist, Bjørk
and van Veelen, Bregje
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026-02-06
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- climate change perceptions, energy geographies, fossil fuel, oil, participatory mapping, petroculture
- in
- Geo: Geography and Environment
- volume
- 13
- issue
- 1
- article number
- e70056
- publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105029480728
- ISSN
- 2054-4049
- DOI
- 10.1002/geo2.70056
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s). Geo: Geography and Environment published by the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
- id
- 8df08fff-152d-44c5-9ec1-7f9ccb057b49
- date added to LUP
- 2026-02-23 19:59:44
- date last changed
- 2026-02-24 14:35:28
@article{8df08fff-152d-44c5-9ec1-7f9ccb057b49,
abstract = {{<p>With the urgent need to address climate change, it is critical to confront fossil fuel dependency, particularly in the Global North. This requires confronting the spatio-cultural dimensions of fossil fuels, including how they have become embedded in those locations most closely tied to the fossil fuel industry. This article integrates insights from energy geographies with Hein's concept of petroleumscape to unpack how oil is embedded in Stavanger, Norway's oil capital. This article argues that attention must be paid to local petroleumscapes in order to better unpack how fossil fuel dependency becomes spatially embedded in locally differentiated ways, while simultaneously reinforcing a global petroleumscape. Through qualitative participatory mapping, the article visualises perceived spatialities of petroleum by Stavanger's citizens. Empirically, the article finds that although petroleum is seen as at once hyper-visible and obscured, the city is characterised by a petro-omnipresence. Furthermore, the article finds that petroleum produces a particular social space through the funding of public goods, while also producing social inequalities that are experienced spatially through unequal housing patterns and leisure activities. These insights contribute to uncovering the obscured, yet all-encompassing influences of petroleum on social–ecological spaces in a highly oil-dependent and oil-producing region.</p>}},
author = {{Tørnqvist, Bjørk and van Veelen, Bregje}},
issn = {{2054-4049}},
keywords = {{climate change perceptions; energy geographies; fossil fuel; oil; participatory mapping; petroculture}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{02}},
number = {{1}},
publisher = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
series = {{Geo: Geography and Environment}},
title = {{Mental Oil Spills : Visualising Petroleumscapes to Uncover Petro-Hegemony in Stavanger, Norway}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/geo2.70056}},
doi = {{10.1002/geo2.70056}},
volume = {{13}},
year = {{2026}},
}