Strategic Resources, Border Economies, Transnational Dynamics, and Threats in the Amazon: The Case of Lago Agrio in Ecuador

Between the 70s and 90s, the myth of the “Oriente” was linked to the image of “the land of hope.” It was perceived as a place where everyone could find work, land, and wealth, offering hope because the “Oriente” was seen as a land to colonize. Lago Agrio epitomized all the images I previously described. The name was associated with the first oil well that the Texaco Oil Company established in this region in 1972. This chapter provides a historical, structural review and analysis of ethnographic sources contributing to a geopolitical characterization of different constitutive moments of the Ecuadorian Amazon. We focus on Lago Agrio to describe how the social world intertwines in a porous and permeable border area where strategic resources (oil), illegal economies (trafficking), urbanization of indigenous populations, and transnational threats (narco-industry) converge. The aim is to understand the particularities of urban phenomena in a border region and possible scenarios within the field of security and defense through a delimited case study.