Petrocultural Formations: Crisis Discourse, Energy Geographies, and Neo-liberalism.

The article examines the 1970s energy crises as a pivotal moment in U.S. culture and the emergence of neo-liberal political economy, emphasizing how the discourse of "energy crisis" shaped social, economic, and spatial restructuring. It critiques the official narrative that attributes the crisis solely to the OPEC embargo, highlighting instead the complex interplay of U.S. energy monopolies, petroculture (society's deep dependence on oil), and an underlying capitalist accumulation crisis. The analysis focuses on three key figures—the suburb, energy markets, and the entrepreneur—to illustrate how the crisis narrative facilitated a future-oriented temporality that justified deregulation, individual sacrifice, and the shift toward market-driven individualism. The 1979 Levittown gas riots exemplify the contradictions of this new order, revealing tensions between promised economic autonomy and the realities of energy dependence and social precarity.