This research seeks to identify the survival mechanisms used by indigenous people, consciously and unconsciously, when faced with the impacts of multinational and national oil companies on their lives and their environment. The Amazonian oil conflict in Ecuador and Peru and the various actors involved in the oil politics of the region represent a challenging environment for the social researcher and also a unique opportunity to create new avenues where western and indigenous knowledge can coexist. Special attention is given to what I call a 'Building Bridges' methodology created in collaboration with the indigenous groups as an emancipatory and reflective process for both the researcher and participants. A framework for a Building Bridges methodology is also presented through the four principles of: relationships, reciprocity, participation and emancipation. The analysis focuses on the political space that arises from the interaction of the different actors involved in the oil conflict - which I call the powerful, the survivors and the intermediaries - and the impacts this may have on indigenous peoples' survival. I look at the strategies used by the oil industry and the State in order to assure the success of their operation in conflict areas and at the strategies of survival of indigenous peoples by using a model which I have called Consciousness of Time and which shows how the survival of a group depends on its level of awareness and the use of its survival mechanisms over time. I argue that in the case of indigenous peoples, long-term strategies are more related to historic processes of adaptation for survival and are based on learning from past struggles and traditional knowledge transmitted through the generations, while short-term strategies respond to new processes of adaptation as a result of the changing model of relationship between the actors involved in the oil conflict.