Beyond the Heroic Sacrifice

PITCH team members Eike-Christian Heine and Agathe Four-Moret (UiS) have published “Beyond the Heroic Sacrifice: Reframing Petromasculinity and Extractivism in Norwegian North Sea Narratives” in the The Otter – La Loutre’s Soil and Sea special collection. Heine and Four-Moret argue that instead of grappling with the economic pitfalls of oil dependence and its ecological consequences, Norwegian cultural memory has traditionally focused on the offshore workers. While this narrative rightly recognizes labour exploitation, a resulting side effect is that any critique of extractivism is easily dismissed as a disrespect to the memory of workers and the nation’s industrial heritage. The essay traces Norwegian cultural production across media, art, and literature to show the possibility of shifting from narratives that heroize extractive labour toward contemporary voices that dismantle petro-masculinity to confront broader colonial and ecological roots and realities of Norwegian North Sea oil.

The article is also available in French: Au-Delà Du Sacrifice Héroïque : Repenser La Pétro-Masculinité Et l’Extractivisme Dans Les Récits Norvégiens De La Mer Du Nord