Recent scholarship in the environmental and energy humanities has called attention to regimes of energy transition. The discussion on futures “after oil” marks a shift from earlier studies of oil assemblages, which evolved from analyses of coal-based fossil capitalism. The spaces shaped by these transitions have attracted scholarly interest, especially in the context of studies on the architecture of company towns, petroleumscapes, and oil heritage sites. Central to these investigations is a consistent focus on the logic of extraction itself. Energy sources such as coal and oil do not perform merely as extracted commodities; they serve as the energetic infrastructure that facilitates further extraction of timber, gold, copper, lead, uranium, and many other materials. In this sense, the very logic of energy consumption is fundamentally shaped by and inseparable from extractivism’s broader logics.

Extractivism, as a practice, relies on an expansive spatial infrastructure — from pipelines to refineries, mining camps to oil enclaves, storage facilities to ports — leaving a lasting architectural imprint across the world. Histories of architectural and spatial techniques can illuminate the ideologies and systems — such as property, land tenure, labor, gender, and racial regimes — that underpin the governance modes of extractivism. By analyzing extractivism itself, rather than just the “extractive economy,” historians can shift their focus from specific resources to the spatial processes that rendered the Earth extractable. This approach highlights the spatial technologies and spatial management that allow us to understand how the politics and beliefs surrounding extractivism appear in the act of “resource-making.”Recent scholarship in the environmental and energy humanities has called attention to regimes of energy transition. The discussion on futures “after oil” marks a shift from earlier studies of oil assemblages, which evolved from analyses of coal-based fossil capitalism. The spaces shaped by these transitions have attracted scholarly interest, especially in the context of studies on the architecture of company towns, petroleumscapes, and oil heritage sites. Central to these investigations is a consistent focus on the logic of extraction itself. Energy sources such as coal and oil do not perform merely as extracted commodities; they serve as the energetic infrastructure that facilitates further extraction of timber, gold, copper, lead, uranium, and many other materials. In this sense, the very logic of energy consumption is fundamentally shaped by and inseparable from extractivism’s broader logics.

Extractivism, as a practice, relies on an expansive spatial infrastructure — from pipelines to refineries, mining camps to oil enclaves, storage facilities to ports — leaving a lasting architectural imprint across the world. Histories of architectural and spatial techniques can illuminate the ideologies and systems — such as property, land tenure, labor, gender, and racial regimes — that underpin the governance modes of extractivism. By analyzing extractivism itself, rather than just the “extractive economy,” historians can shift their focus from specific resources to the spatial processes that rendered the Earth extractable. This approach highlights the spatial technologies and spatial management that allow us to understand how the politics and beliefs surrounding extractivism appear in the act of “resource-making.”