Hydraulic fracturing, energy transition and political engagement in the Netherlands: The energetics of citizenship (original) (raw)
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Abstract Renewable energy technologies are often idealized as environmentally innocent alternatives to fossil fuels. Fossil fuel extraction is often considered as ‘unjust’ and renewable energy as the ‘just’ alternative. At the same time renewable energy projects, such as wind parks, are often resisted because of the uneven impacts of its infrastructure. This paper analyses such ambiguous meanings of energy justice (social justice issues related to energy) along the lines of its three tenets: distributional, procedural and recognition justice, aiming to understand how energy justice is constructed from below. It does so on the basis of a case study in the Noordoostpolder (the Netherlands) where plans for extracting shale gas went together with both large-scale and small-scale renewable energy practices. The paper analyses how energy justice is ‘made’ by how people resist shale gas and engage in 'renewable energy practices' and as such produce new imaginations and normativities of energy justice. Such an ethnographic approach helps to understand energy justice as a process of co-construction of activists, policy makers and scholars and as such responds to recent calls for a human-centred approach to the study of energy transitions. The paper is based on two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Noordoostpolder.
Creating and debating energy citizenship. The case of shale gas in Poland
Energy, Resource Extraction and Society. Impacts and Contested Futures, 2018
Between 2011 and 2015, the perspective of shale gas extraction in Poland raised enthusiasm among political and business elites, and general public alike. However, in some cases, local opposition led to long-term mobilisations. When adequately contextualised, the brief “affair” with shale gas can be interpreted as a lesson in what we term “energy citizenship.” This chapter analyses the impact of shale gas exploration in the context of a local mobilisation around the drilling site of Żurawlów, in southeast Poland. We argue that a crucial basis for energy citizenship is actors’ engagement with production of lay expertise: it not only allowed actors to participate in broader debates on energy options but also resulted in new networks being established across different organisations and scales. In the conclusion, we reflect on the long-lasting effects of the anti-fracking mobilisation for the local activists, the broader Polish environmental movement and the representatives of public administration. For this reason, we use the results of a reflection workshop organised in 2017 in Warsaw. We argue that the workshop demonstrated how the emergence of energy citizenship was influenced by the residents’ interaction with NGOs and state institutions.
Framing the future of fracking: discursive lock-in or energy degrowth in the Netherlands?
Hydraulic fracturing is a technology developed to improve and increase the production of natural gas. In many countries, including the Netherlands, it has caused environmental controversies. In these controversies, ‘futurity framing’ may open up debates for alternative paradigms such as ‘degrowth,’ which is the pursuing of collective and deliberative, downscaled production of (natural) resources and less consumption for convivial living. Based on a frame analysis, it is demonstrated that opponents and proponents of fracking have envisaged pessimistic energy futures either to promote or devaluate fracking technology. In addition, the results show that dominant technological enthusiasm has enabled the introduction of ‘degrowth technology,’ which are downscaled, decentralized and renewable energy technologies. Degrowth-technology framing may provide a means of access for more radical degrowth thinking in the energy debates. This empirical finding also indicates that the degrowth paradigm could include controversies as entry points for creating support for degrowth thinking.
Activism and Ethnography in the Basque Anti-Fracking Movement
2015
With growing concerns in Europe over energy independence and sustainability, hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" has become a recent environmental controversy across Europe. While the wealthiest member states EU such as France and Germany have implemented bans or moratoriums, the pressure to drill concentrates on peripheral debt-burdened countries such as Ireland, Romania, and Spain. Starting in 2011, a globally-networked grassroots movement emerged in response to fracking exploratory permits across the Basque-Spanish border. In the spring and summer of 2015, I conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Gasteiz, in the Basque Country, just as it became a hub of transnational anti-fracking activism. Drawing on insights from the fields of political ecology and science studies, this paper begins to explore how communities positioned at the frontlines of climate and environmental conflict are beginning invent, circulate, and mobilize new interpretations of capitalism, progress, and society's relationship with the natural world.
2014
Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Diversity and difference in the UK's anti fracking movement 1.2 Epistemology, methodology and methods 1.3 Scope and limitations 1.4 Overview of chapters Chapter 2 Emergence and Expansion of Fracking 2.1 Expanding energy frontiers and growing discontent 2.2 Fracking becomes a global phenomenon 2.3 Neoliberal turn in British politics and the 'Dash for Gas' Chapter 3 Analytical Framework 3.1 The evolving theories of social movements 3.2 Environmental activist in the UK Chapter 4 Reclaim The Power-Anti Fracking Action Camp 4.1 The anatomy of Reclaim the Power 4.2 Anti fracking activists, ideologies and politics 4.3 Negotiating spaces within RTP 4.4 From ideology into action Chapter 5 Conclusion References Appendix A
How contested sources of energy such as shale gas are perceived in frontier countries considering their development is incredibly important to national and international climate policies. The UK shale development case is of particular interest currently as the Government attempts to position the UK as a pioneer of European, safe, sustainable shale gas development. We conduct a mixed-methods analysis of the UK policy debate on shale gas development involving 30 stakeholder interviews and 1557 political documents. This empirical focus extends the existing literature by identifying the use of frames in and through the institutions and practices of formal UK politics. We identify nine key frames and their associated storylines, analyse their use over time, and compare these findings with other national case studies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given most UK Governments within our timeframe have supported shale development, pro-shale development frames dominate in the policy debate; however, we also find a high level of anti-shale development frame use, suggesting a deep and ongoing framing contest in national formal political sites. We find in particular a more prominent focus on land-use issues and impacts on the landscape than other UK studies or other national contexts. Conceptually, the study puts forward an integrative approach to the related concepts of frames and storylines, as well as arguments concerning the impotence of storylines in anticipatory political debate and the polyvalence of framing strategies. Questions about governance are raised by the general lack of consensus over the framing of shale development within formal political sites, let alone amongst the broader public; and by the lack of a coherent response from the Government to criticisms of its approach. Finally, we reflect on the apparent lack of evidence for Hajer’s ‘communicative miracle’ in our case, and speculate as to whether the lack of broad-based resonance of the ‘bridge’ storyline signals trouble for the positive-sum thinking of ecological modernisation.
Briefing: Anti-'fracking' Activism and Local Democracy
2020
Many UK citizens have expressed significant reservations about the local and global impacts of shale gas development. Locally, concerns about hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking' for shale gas have led to direct action protests. While scientific knowledge and public education about the hydraulic fracturing process may be viewed as a solution to local resistance, research suggests that more attention should be focused on the coalescence of resistance rooted in the context of climate change and local democracy. Thus, this report explores how democracy and environmental activism have influenced the development of UK shale gas through local resistance.
Framing fracking: private property, common resources, and regimes of governance
In this policy ethnography we examine the discourse related to unconventional natural gas development in western Pennsylvania in order to illuminate expressions of political power in attempts to manufacture consent. We focus on the overlapping spheres of influence between the state and capital to dissect techniques of governance as they operate at the level of civil society. Data collection from fieldwork and discourse analysis, particularly focused on discourse about recent legislation to regulate the booming natural gas industry in Pennsylvania, reveals the ways in which industry proponents attempt to corral public opinion to the goal of extracting and amassing capital. We analyze how industry actors try to gain and draw from the authority and approval of the state in those efforts. In turn, the state uses its socially sanctioned authority to reframe water, land, air, community, health, and self around a paradigm that interprets those as sources of profit. This case study examines how, under neoliberalism, the state organizes knowledge on the topic of fracking such that the balance of power shifts further out of democratic reach.
One global movement, many local voices: Discourse(s) of the global anti-fracking movement
This paper analyzes the dominant local and global diagnostic and prognostic frames of the anti-fracking movement using theoretical perspectives generated by Arturo Escobar and Michel Foucault that emphasize the articulation of alternative imaginaries, and power and discourse, respectively. Giovanna Di Chiro’s conceptualization of environmental justice is also engaged to help shed further light on the anti-fracking movement. How the anti-fracking movement conceptualizes the problems and the solutions complexifies the political debate on fracking which tends to bifurcate the controversy along environmental and economic development lines. The movement discourse(s) especially draws attention to: the construction and role of knowledge, the relationship between humans/culture and nature; and democratic legitimacy. This paper was subsequently published as a book chapter: Tamara Steger , Milos Milicevic (2014), One Global Movement, Many Local Voices: Discourse(s) of the Global Anti-Fracking Movement, in Liam Leonard , Sya Buryn Kedzior (ed.) Occupy the Earth: Global Environmental Movements (Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice, Volume 15) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.1 - 35
Thesis, 2017
In this paper, I explore on people of Groningen experience on earthquake as an impact of gas extractivism in Groningen, The Netherlands. I examine vulnerability meanings from various social dimensions in Groningen to get a richer understanding and a better picture of Groningen. I utilise feminist political ecology as it is linked feminist economist and feminist political ecology to criticise and challenge the neoliberal ideology of the state to drive away from economic interest and put its citizen well-being into first place. As it happens in Groningen, people in Groningen are over-coming vulnerability by going together to criticise The Dutch government economic interest on gas extractivism in Groningen by doing "care", "common", and "enough". People of Groningen challenge The Dutch government to stop gas extractivism and put its citizen well-being as the government priorIty.