Frontier Futures: Natures and Cultures of Capitalism in a Burmese Oilfield, 1886-1942

Abstract

From the late 19th to the early 20th century, the oil-producing area of Yenangyaung in Upper Burma emerged as a pivotal site in the global petroleum economy, reshaping the colonial hinterlands of British Burma into a hub of capitalist enterprise. This dissertation examines the dynamics of this transformation between environment, law, and economic life within this resource frontier by introducing the concept of a “future-oriented capitalist vision.” It explores how the material conditions of oil extraction, colonial legal infrastructures, and speculative practices converged to shape individual aspirations and social life, and highlights how the promise of oil wealth and the incursion of global capital transformed how individuals understood their own lives under British colonialism. Through this lens, it situates the Burmese oil industry within broader global histories of capitalism and colonialism, emphasizing the co-constitutive relationship between local agency and global political and social formations. The Yenangyaung oilfields represented an alternative form of colonial plural society. Unlike Rangoon and other coastal port cities shaped by maritime connections, the Yenangyaung oilfields were marked by sparse colonial state presence but heavy corporate capital. Burmese oil-lords (twinzayo), Indian entrepreneurs, Parsi lawyers, Chinese agents, British officials, and American drillers all coexisted and competed within a framework of intense resource speculation and production. The speculative value of oil property created unprecedented opportunities for individuals to imagine futures of economic prosperity, while simultaneously consolidating colonial legal infrastructures as institutional frameworks of modern global capitalism. This aspirational frontier became a site where individuals contested the disruptions of colonial conquest by envisioning their participation in global capitalist futures. This dissertation conceptualizes colonial Burma not as a mere extension of British India but as an aspirational frontier where human consciousness and economic life were deeply intertwined. It shifts away from state-centered paradigms of frontier governmentality and frameworks of state evasion, focusing instead on the role of individual experiences and aspirations in shaping the frontier’s ideational space. Drawing on phenomenological insights, it argues that these individualized futures—rooted in speculative and financial practices—both empowered and depoliticized actors by projecting an apolitical façade of capitalist opportunity. However, the contradictions of this vision culminated in moments like the 1938 oilfield strikes, which revealed the fraught intersections of labor, capitalism, and colonial domination. Methodologically, the dissertation reconstructs the social life of the oilfields through fragmented and scattered archival sources, navigating the challenges posed by the deliberate destruction of oil industry records in 1942 during the British retreat. By centering the formative decades of the global oil industry, this study moves beyond high-politics-focused narratives and challenges diffusionist accounts of capitalism, foregrounding the entangled temporalities of “futures past.” Ultimately, this dissertation demonstrates how Burma’s oilfields operated not merely as sites of resource extraction but as dynamic arenas where human aspirations, colonial power, and capitalist imaginaries intersected. These processes transformed economic and social life in Upper Burma, while simultaneously reinforcing colonial and capitalist structures. The destruction of the Yenangyaung oilfields during World War II curtailed this era of speculative futures, yet its legacies continue to inform how we understand the relationship between environment, law, and capitalism in the global history of resource frontiers.