As global foreign policy makers grapple with the role of energy in such issues as the Russian-Ukraine disputes or trade relations with China, they should recognize the importance of petrobarter, the practice of exchanging oil directly for goods and services rather than for money, argues Yale anthropologist Douglas Rogers.
Petrobarter has long played a significant role in the movement of oil around the world, from the former Soviet Union to China’s recent quest for natural resources in Africa. Read about Rogers’s research on petrobarter in the April 2014 issue of Current Anthropology.
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