ABSTRACT In oil-dependent nations, the governance of national oil reserves and the redistribution of oil rents are often widely-perceived as moral endeavours, necessary for achieving a minimum just distribution of resources. Struggles over oil policies and rents among powerful oil industry actors in private and public companies, public institutions, banks and unions are embedded in this moral economy. Thus, in moments of political-economic crisis, oil elites often attempt to persuade the public to perceive them as principled oil managers and their elite competitors as morally corrupt in order to legitimate new or renewed claims on oil. In Ecuador, I explore such a moral economy of oil. First, I detail the corruption narratives that oil elites have used in distinct historical conjunctures to shape moral perceptions of the actors who manage oil reserves and rents. Second, I detail a conjuncture in the early years of the Rafael Correa regime, when indigenous groups in the northern Amazon tried to leverage ancestral claims to oil-rich territories to form an indigenous-owned oil company called Alian Petrol. Traditional oil elites publicly denounced Alian Petrol as immoral. I build on classical theories of moral economy by signalling how elites exploited stereotypes of ethnic difference, contrasting the particularity of indigeneity with the universality of technocratic, mestizo authority, to cultivate moral expectations about continued elite control of oil resources and rents. This case allows us to consider how and when elites foster ethnic difference to actively shape moral economies of oil in postcolonial contexts.

中文翻译：

---

石油的道德经济：厄瓜多尔的腐败叙事和石油精英

摘要 在依赖石油的国家，国家石油储备的治理和石油租金的重新分配通常被广泛认为是道德上的努力，是实现资源最低限度公平分配所必需的。私营和上市公司、公共机构、银行和工会中强大的石油行业参与者之间在石油政策和租金方面的斗争植根于这种道德经济。因此，在政治经济危机时刻，石油精英经常试图说服公众将他们视为有原则的石油管理者，而将他们的精英竞争对手视为道德败坏，以便为新的或重新提出的石油主张合法化。在厄瓜多尔，我探索了石油的这种道德经济。第一的，我详细介绍了石油精英在不同历史时期使用的腐败叙事，以塑造管理石油储备和租金的行为者的道德观念。其次，我详细介绍了拉斐尔·科雷亚 (Rafael Correa) 政权早期的一个事件，当时亚马逊北部的土著群体试图利用祖先对石油资源丰富的领土的主张，成立一家名为 Alian Petrol 的土著石油公司。传统的石油精英公开谴责 Alian Petrol 是不道德的。我以道德经济学的经典理论为基础，通过表明精英如何利用种族差异的刻板印象，将土著的特殊性与技术官僚、混血权威的普遍性进行对比，以培养对继续精英控制石油资源和租金的道德期望。