Ecological Crisis
and Extractive Capitalism in Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
Dr. Meera. K. G.,
Associate professor,
Department of English,
MMNSS College Kottiyam,
Kerala. India.
Abstract: Kate Beaton’s
graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the
Oil Sands presents a personal narrative shaped by economic necessity
while quietly revealing the ecological consequences of industrial oil
extraction in Canada. Although the memoir primarily documents Beaton’s
experiences as a young worker navigating isolation and precarity, it also
offers a sustained reflection on environmental degradation caused by extractive
capitalism. Through restrained narration, visual repetition, and symbolic
imagery, Beaton portrays ecological damage as an everyday reality rather than
an exceptional disaster. This article approaches Ducks from an ecocritical
perspective, drawing on theories of slow violence, extractivism, and
environmental alienation to examine how ecological harm becomes normalized
within labor systems. The study argues that Beaton’s work exposes the close
relationship between environmental destruction and human exploitation,
demonstrating how both land and labor are treated as expendable. By embedding
ecological crisis within lived experience, Ducks encourages readers to reconsider
dominant assumptions about economic survival, environmental responsibility, and
justice.
Keywords: Ecocriticism; Graphic Memoir; Extractive
Capitalism; Environmental alienation; Slow Violence
Environmental crisis is most often communicated through
large-scale data: rising temperatures, shrinking forests, and accelerating
species extinction. While these statistics are essential for understanding the
scope of ecological damage, they frequently remain abstract and emotionally
distant. As a result, the everyday human experiences through which
environmental harm is lived, normalized, and endured are often overlooked.
Literary and visual narratives offer a crucial alternative perspective by
translating ecological crisis into intimate, embodied experience. In doing so,
they reveal how environmental destruction is not only a planetary concern but
also a deeply personal and social one.
Kate Beaton’s graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the
Oil Sands occupies a significant place within this narrative tradition. The
memoir recounts Beaton’s time working in Alberta’s oil sands during the late
2000s, a period marked by economic instability and widespread student debt.
Motivated by financial necessity rather than ideological alignment with the oil
industry, Beaton enters one of Canada’s most environmentally destructive
extractive sites. This context is essential to understanding the memoir’s
ecological dimension: Ducks does not emerge from environmental activism but
from economic compulsion, a reality shared by many workers within extractive
industries.
From the outset, the oil sands are depicted as a
radically altered environment. The land appears stripped, polluted, and
dominated by industrial infrastructure, yet this damage is rarely framed as
extraordinary. Instead, it exists as part of the daily background of work life.
This quiet presentation is central to the memoir’s power. Rather than
dramatizing ecological catastrophe, Beaton presents environmental degradation
as an accepted condition of employment, revealing how deeply normalized such
harm has become within extractive economies. The memoir thus exposes a
troubling paradox: ecological destruction is both visible and socially
invisible, acknowledged yet rarely challenged.
Ducks is particularly
compelling because it resists the expectation that environmental narratives
must offer clear moral positions or solutions. Beaton does not cast judgment on
her coworkers, nor does she portray herself as ethically superior for
recognizing environmental harm. Instead, she captures the discomfort,
ambivalence, and emotional distancing that arise when survival depends on
participation in destructive systems. This perspective complicates simplistic
binaries between environmental responsibility and economic survival,
highlighting the structural forces that limit individual agency.
This article approaches Ducks through an
ecocritical lens, drawing on concepts such as extractive capitalism, slow
violence, and environmental alienation. By examining Beaton’s visual
strategies, narrative restraint, and symbolic imagery, the study explores how
ecological harm is embedded within the routines of industrial labor. Rather
than treating environmental damage as a separate theme, the memoir integrates
it into the texture of everyday life, revealing how environmental and human
exploitation are intertwined.
Ultimately, Ducks invites readers to reconsider
how ecological crisis is experienced and understood. By grounding environmental
degradation in lived experience, the memoir challenges dominant narratives that
distance ecological harm from ordinary life. In doing so, it offers a powerful
critique of extractive capitalism and raises urgent questions about
responsibility, justice, and the human cost of environmental destruction in the
contemporary world.
Extractive capitalism is based on the assumption that
land exists primarily for economic use. In Ducks, this worldview is
reflected in the visual and narrative treatment of the oil sands. The land is
repeatedly shown as excavated, reshaped, and chemically altered, with little
concern for recovery or sustainability (Beaton 52–55). Nature appears not as a
living system but as an industrial surface. This representation aligns with
eco-Marxist critiques that argue capitalism disrupts the balance between human
activity and ecological systems, creating a lasting rupture between society and
nature (Foster 141). Beaton’s memoir illustrates this rupture not through
theory but through lived experience, showing how ecological damage becomes
inseparable from economic survival.
One of the most striking aspects of Ducks is its
depiction of industrial space. Beaton frequently draws wide panels filled with
machinery, pipelines, and tailings ponds, while human figures appear small and
vulnerable within these environments (Beaton 61–63). The scale of the industry
overwhelms both workers and the land itself. These images are often contrasted
with Beaton’s memories of Cape Breton, which are illustrated with softer lines
and natural elements such as water and vegetation (Beaton 18–20). The contrast
emphasizes a sense of environmental alienation. While Beaton is physically
present in the landscape of the oil sands, she is emotionally and ethically
disconnected from it.
This alienation reflects modern industrial attitudes
toward nature, which, as Garrard observes, frame the environment as an object
to be controlled rather than a space of coexistence (60). In Ducks, the
industrial landscape becomes a symbol of this broken relationship between
humans and the natural world. The memoir’s title refers to an incident in which
migratory ducks landed on toxic tailings ponds and died after exposure to
chemical waste. Beaton recounts this event without dramatic emphasis,
presenting the dead birds as part of the working environment rather than a
shocking anomaly (Beaton 211–213).This narrative restraint is significant. The
ducks—creatures associated with movement and natural cycles—are rendered
powerless by industrial pollution. Their deaths reflect how nonhuman life is
routinely sacrificed within extractive economies. The lack of outrage
surrounding the incident highlights a broader cultural indifference toward
environmental loss.
Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence helps explain this
response. Environmental harm often occurs gradually and without spectacle,
making it easier to ignore or rationalize (Nixon 2). In Ducks, the death of the
ducks is neither denied nor fully acknowledged, reinforcing the idea that
ecological damage has become an accepted cost of productivity.
A central theme in Ducks is the normalization of
environmental destruction. Workers are aware of pollution, toxic waste, and
damaged land, yet these conditions are treated as unavoidable aspects of
employment. Beaton reflects on moments of discomfort followed by emotional distancing,
recognizing that questioning the system offers little practical alternative
(Beaton 97–99).
This emotional adjustment illustrates how slow violence
operates in daily life. Because environmental damage unfolds over time and
lacks immediate visibility, it becomes easier to accept. The oil sands function
as an environment where ecological crisis is constant but rarely urgent. Timothy
Morton’s idea of “hyper objects” further clarifies this dynamic. Environmental
phenomena such as climate change and industrial pollution are so vast that they
exceed individual perception (Morton 28). Ducks captures this scale by
embedding ecological harm into repetitive routines, making it feel both
overwhelming and distant.
Beaton’s memoir draws a clear connection between
environmental degradation and the exploitation of labor. Alongside images of
polluted landscapes, the text documents unsafe working conditions, exhaustion,
and gendered harassment (Beaton 142–146). Both land and workers are treated as
expendable resources within the extractive system.
Ecofeminist theory argues that environmental destruction
often parallels the marginalization of vulnerable bodies (Plumwood 3). In
Ducks, this connection is visible in the way economic systems disregard both
ecological balance and human well-being. The same logic that permits
environmental harm also enables social injustice. By presenting these
experiences together, Beaton challenges the separation between environmental
and social concerns, showing that ecological crisis is also a human crisis.
Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
ultimately offers more than a personal account of labor in a remote industrial
environment; it provides a quietly devastating critique of extractive
capitalism and its ecological consequences. Through its understated narrative
voice and restrained visual style, the memoir exposes how environmental
destruction becomes embedded in everyday routines, rendered normal by economic
necessity and structural inequality. Rather than depicting ecological crisis as
a singular catastrophe, Beaton presents it as a continuous condition—one that
shapes landscapes, bodies, and emotional lives over time.
One of the memoir’s most significant contributions to
ecocritical discourse lies in its refusal to moralize individual participation
in extractive systems. Beaton does not portray herself or her coworkers as
villains, nor does she frame environmental damage as the result of ignorance.
Instead, Ducks reveals how structural pressures—student debt, limited
employment opportunities, and regional economic decline—compels individuals to
participate in industries they recognize as harmful. This perspective
complicates dominant environmental narratives that place responsibility
primarily on individual choices, shifting attention instead to the broader
political and economic systems that limit those choices in the first place.
By situating ecological harm within the lived experience
of labor, Beaton highlights the deep entanglement between environmental
exploitation and social vulnerability. The oil sands function as a space where
both land and workers are exhausted, monitored, and ultimately treated as
disposable. This parallel reinforces ecofeminist and eco-Marxist critiques that
emphasize how extractive capitalism depends on the devaluation of both human
and nonhuman life. In Ducks, environmental degradation is not an abstract
future threat but a present reality that manifests in polluted water, dead
wildlife, and chronic physical and emotional strain.
The memoir’s engagement with nonhuman loss—most notably
through the image of the ducks killed by toxic tailings ponds—serves as a
powerful symbol of slow violence. The understated treatment of this event
underscores how ecological damage often fails to provoke sustained outrage
precisely because it unfolds incrementally and without spectacle. Beaton’s
narrative captures this ethical dulling, revealing how constant exposure to
environmental harm can produce resignation rather than resistance. In doing so,
Ducks challenges readers to reflect on their own desensitization to ecological
crisis within contemporary capitalist societies.
Formally, the graphic memoir medium enhances this
critique by allowing ecological harm to be experienced visually and temporally.
Repetitive imagery, expansive industrial panels, and moments of silence compel
readers to linger on scenes of damage and monotony. This pacing resists the
rapid consumption of environmental discourse typical of news media, encouraging
a slower, more embodied form of witnessing. As a result, Ducks demonstrates the
unique capacity of graphic narratives to represent systemic environmental harm
in ways that are both accessible and emotionally resonant.
In conclusion, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands
stands as a vital ecocritical text that bridges personal narrative and
environmental analysis. By embedding ecological crisis within the realities of
labor, debt, and survival, Beaton exposes the moral and material costs of
extractive capitalism. The memoir ultimately suggests that addressing
environmental degradation requires more than technological solutions or
individual lifestyle changes; it demands a critical reckoning with the economic
structures that normalize harm and render both people and ecosystems
expendable. Through its quiet honesty and visual restraint, Ducks invites
readers not only to witness ecological damage but also to question the systems
that make such damage seem inevitable
Works Cited
Beaton, Kate. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. Drawn & Quarterly, 2022.
Garrard, Greg. Ecocriticism. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2012.
Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard UP, 2011.
Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. Monthly Review Press, 2000.
Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge, 1993.
Chute, Hillary. Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form. Harvard UP, 2016.
Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. U of Minnesota P, 2013.