In synch with the construction of infrastructure related to the extraction, transport and processing of hydrocarbons, oil corporations (re)construct or support cultural infrastructures (museums, schools, heritage sites...). Traditionally, we understand these cultural infrastructures as related to the corporate social responsibility strategy of an industry as an effort to create a favourable image of themselves as a thrust-worthy partners for the community.
In this paper, we explore the corporate funding of the cultural sector not only as an image management effort, but also as a discursive tool to normalise pro-industry rationalities and subjectivities. We will specifically zoom in on natural gas sector tries to create a type of "energy literacy" fin the regions they work. Basically they culturally assemble a specific way of reading the industry centred around corporate vallues and regimes of truth.
"Energy Literacy" will be theorised in this paper based on ethnographic research in the Altai Republic, Siberia. In Altai the plans of constructing a pipeline to China went hand in hand with Gazprom heavily investing in the cultural sector. Previously the shamanist Altaians opposed the construction of any kind of infrastructure. Since the Gazprom-funded rehaul of their museum, support for gas has grown. Examples from the Netherlands are also used to explore the processes and tactics of creating energy literacy more widely.
