Chemical Governmentality: Manufacturing Politics in Oil Refineries

Petroleum products silently govern human relations not only through ideology or policy but through their chemical composition and material form. What is the technical-chemical work that translates geological formations of oil into sociopolitical formations of human relations? How is governmentality encoded into petroleum products during their manufacturing? This article develops the concept of chemical governmentality to analyze how engineering processes in oil refineries govern sociopolitical life. Drawing on ethnographic research in Indian refineries and households, I examine how fuels such as kerosene, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), or Piped Natural Gas (PNG) are chemically and infrastructurally configured to produce distinct forms of domesticity, sociality, and state-citizen relations. Refining processes, product specifications, and testing protocols embed political logics into petroleum products, disciplining consumers through material means. Chemicals cohabit human worlds not just through toxicity, but also through governmentality. My analysis foregrounds chemical engineering as an arena where material machinations participate in the production of everyday government.