Oil, Environmentalism and Conservative identity politics in Alberta, Western Canada.

I am applying for a taught course, however I am interested in conducting research at a later stage into the intersection
between oil and conservative (and populist) politics in Western Canada, in particular in the province of Alberta. This is a
place where oil has played a major role in cementing resistance to Canadian centralization, with some actors going as far
as to call for Alberta's and/or Western Canada's independence. This means I will consider writing a dissertation on any
related topic, including and especially natural resource extraction, environmental politics, the electoral/political
implications of neoliberal economics, as well as populism and national identity. Attention to case studies from across
North America will be especially pertinent, however I would also like to compare approaches to this topic with
approaches used when discussing similar themes and ethnographic data from the colonized world, so as not to
unnecessarily privilege eurocentric epistemes.