Economic Anthropology 2016; 3: 119–132 DOI:10.1002/sea2.12049 Women, nature, and development in sites of Ecuador’s petroleum circuit Cristina Cielo, Lisset Coba, & Ivette Vallejo Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales–FLACSO sede Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador Corresponding author: Cristina Cielo; e-mail: mccielo@flacso.edu.ec This article argues that the contradictory character of Ecuador’s current development project is made evident through a focus on energy resource management from a feminist ecological perspective. The hydrocarbon exploitation fundamental to these projects transforms women’s roles in social reproduction and production, their relationship with nature, and their dependence on state-institutionalized energy regimes. We examine changes in women’s territorially based work of care at sites in Ecuador’s petroleum circuit. An ethnographic focus on the transformation of women’s daily lives at sites of petroleum exploration, exploitation, and processing in Ecuador reveals an often overlooked dimension of the socioenvironmental conflicts produced by the intensification of national economic insertion into the global energy market. This article thus examines the intersection of state development policies and the gendered construction of subjects of development. The exploitation of natural resources transforms the meanings and values of nature and development, of women’s work of care, and of the participation of these in different energy regimes. Keywords Care Work; Ecofeminism; Development; Petroleum Circuit; Ecuadorian Amazon Te postneoliberal projects of South American governments such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have been championed as antineoliberal and characterized by redistributive social policies. Yet to what extent have the devel- opment projects of these governments, now in power over a decade, led to more just and sustainable social relations? Te contradictory character of these development projects is evident in the energy resource and management efects of Ecuador’s petroleum-based development policies on indigenous economies and sociocultural transformation. From a feminist ecological perspective, this article highlights the ways that the oil exploitation considered funda- mental to the government’s policies transforms indigenous women’s roles in social reproduction and production, alters their relationship with nature, and creates dependence on state-institutionalized energy regimes. In contemporary Ecuador, the postneoliberal development project seeks to transform the country’s economy beyond its historical dependence on the export of raw materials, especially the oil extraction that currently sustains the country’s position in the global economy, and toward the capitalization of the country’s comparative advantage in biodiversity and bioknowledge. Ironically, however, public funding for the massive investments necessary to move toward such a transformation depends on international fnancing and investments in natural resource exploitation. State policies since 2008 have extended petroleum and mining concessions, and as the intensity and extent of extractive enterprises have increased, so have associated social conficts. In this context, development programs are aimed at pacifying confict in strategic territories for contin- ued exploitation. Tese programs create subjects of development, objectively and subjectively dependent on state-institutionalized energy networks. Tese dynamics are evident in the concentrated changes taking place in the strategic territories at the points of petroleum extraction. In Ecuador, the state has developed important infras- tructure in its bid to rapidly incorporate those territories’ inhabitants into dependent positions in the petroleum circuit and its energy networks. A central concept in the theoretical framework to be explored in this article is the relationship between commodifed energy regimes and local use-based energy cycles. We look at this relationship through a focus on © 2016 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved 119