Nicholas Welcome is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is a cultural anthropologist who studies issues of urban life in Ecuador and the Americas. Drawing on science and technology studies and urban anthropology, his work explores how public conflicts over industrial petroleum pollution come to shape the cultural politics of citizenship in the city of Esmeraldas, home of Ecuador’s National Petroleum Refinery. The petro-industrial facility has both exposed the largely afro-descendant communities surrounding it to air and water contamination. His research examines how community members attempt to use citizenship reforms, legal and scientific strategies, and spectacular protests to push for a liveable environment and a higher quality of life.