Renaud Bécot is a lecturer in contemporary history at Sciences Po Grenoble and at the PACTE laboratory, and an associate researcher at the Center for Social History of Contemporary Worlds. His work lies at the intersection of the social history of the world of work and environmental history. With the Collectif 350 Tonnes et des Poussières, he is currently completing a research program on the socio-history of asbestos risk recognition in the French civil service during the decades of deindustrialization. He is also working on a social and environmental history of the world of oil refining throughout the 20th century and up to the present day, with a particular focus on the closure of refineries. With Gwenola Le Naour, he coordinated the book Vivre et lutter dans un monde toxique. Violence environnementale et santé à l’âge du pétrole (Le Seuil, 2023). . With Christophe Bonneuil, he co-edited the special issue “La rose et les Verts. Une histoire environnementale des années Mitterrand” (The Rose and the Greens: An Environmental History of the Mitterrand Years) in the journal 20 & 21 (2023). He recently published an article on the environmental historiography of deindustrialization in France (https://hal.science/hal-04662202v1).
A social and environmental history of the world of oil refining, 20th-21st centuries
In the 20th century, oil became the most widely used fossil fuel in global energy consumption, accounting for up to 46% of this consumption in 1973—and still nearly a third in 2016. The ecological impact of this resource affects the entire planet, but the possibilities for protecting oneself or avoiding some of the ecological consequences of this phenomenon are unevenly distributed among social groups. The health effects of the oil industry primarily affect those working in the oil industry, i.e., workers in the oil industry itself, those in sectors whose activity depends directly on this resource (petrochemicals), as well as their relatives who live in areas structured around oil exploitation (families, neighbors, elected officials, etc.). By moving away from a history of oil focused on commercial strategies or diplomatic relations, this project is part of a renewal of the history of oil work on an international scale, based on three choices. First, the project is based on a comparative history, linking micro-spatial investigations in several refining territories in France and Great Britain. Secondly, the study focuses on ordinary actors in refining areas, particularly employees and actors involved in the oil industry. Finally, this project invites us to rethink the chronology of oil history through the prism of a reflection on the immediate and delayed health effects of the substance. While examining the long-term transformations of work, with a particular focus on the environmental issues associated with this work, we pay special attention to the phases of decline in the oil industry.
Website: https://www.pacte-grenoble.fr/fr/renaud-becot
