Produced water, money water, living water: Anthropological perspectives on water and fracking (original) (raw)
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The predicted increase in unconventional gas production is set to change global energy and concomitant geopolitical relations. The scale and required infrastructure of unconventional gas extraction result in profound changes in the landscape where extraction and processing take place. Widespread public concerns about the impacts of this industry have emerged, particularly with regard to fracking, surface and subterranean water contamination, air pollution and a host of other environmental issues, as well as social impacts and health risks. This article sets out some of the emerging anthropological engagements with unconventional gas and fracking, including analyses of materiality, politics, discourses, rights, risk and knowledge.
This article reviews recent literature relevant to the ongoing shale gas boom and introduces the Journal of Political Ecology's Special Section on hydraulic fracking. We highlight the need for ethnographic studies of the tumultuous social and physical transformations resulting from, and produced by, an unfolding frontier of energy production that unsettles social, economic, and ecological landscapes. We examine how intercommunity connections are vital to recognizing the shared structural conditions produced by the oil and gas industry's expansion, through examining the roles played by the oil field services industry, the sequestration of information and agnotology (the deliberate production of ignorance), divide and conquer tactics, and shared experiences of risk and embodied effects. Summarizing the contributions of the five articles included in the Special Section, we offer recommendations for further inquiry. We examine how social science studies of hydraulic fracking are producing new and innovative methodologies for developing participatory academic and community research projects. Cet article est une revue de la littérature récente pertinente sur le boom du gaz de schiste, pour cette section spéciale dans le Journal of Political Ecology sur la fracturation hydraulique. Nous soulignons la nécessité d'études ethnographiques des transformations sociales et physiques résultant d'une déroulement de la production d'énergie qui déstabilise les paysages sociaux, économiques et écologiques. Nous examinons comment c'est essentiel a reconnaître les similitudes structurelles existent entre les différentes communautés par l'expansion de l'industrie du pétrole et du gaz. Conclusions importantes concerne les rôles joués par le secteur des services de champ pétrolier, la séquestration de l'information et agnotology (la production délibérée de l'ignorance), les tactiques de diviser et conquérir, et les expériences partagées de risques et effets intrinsèques. Résumant les contributions des cinq articles inclus dans la section spéciale, nous concluons avec des recommandations pour des enquêtes plus approfondie. Enfin, nous examinons comment les études en sciences sociales de la fracturation hydraulique produisent de nouvelles méthodes pour le développement de projets de recherche universitaires et communautaires participatives. Este artículo revisa la literatura reciente en curso y relevante al auge del "gas de esquisto" para esta sección especial sobre fractura hidráulica del Journal of Political Ecology. Destacamos la necesidad de estudios etnográficos acerca de las transformaciones tumultuosas sociales y físicas resultantes de y producidas por el despliegue de la producción energética que perturba los paisajes sociales, económicos y ecológicos. Examinamos como las conexiones entre las comunidades son vitales para el reconocimiento de las condiciones estructurales compartidas y producidas por la expansión de la industria del petróleo y gas, esto mediante la exanimación de las funciones desempeñadas por las industrias de servicios petroleros, el posicionamiento ilícito de información y la agnotología (producción deliberada de ignorancia), técnicas de división y conquista, al igual que experiencias compartidas de riesgo y efectos incorporados. Resumiendo las contribuciones de los cinco artículos incluidos en la sección especial ofrecemos recomendaciones para consultas posteriores. Examinamos como los estudios de ciencias sociales sobre fractura hidráulica están produciendo nuevas e innovadoras metodologías para el desarrollo de proyectos de investigación académicos y proyectos comunitarios participativos.
The Good Ole’ Boy Extraction Club: An Eco-Feminist Critique of the Culture of Hydraulic Fracturing
The emergence of hydraulic fracturing—fracking—as a method of fossil fuel extraction presents a new and particularly virulent form of masculinist entitlement disguised as an appeal to “traditional values,” “patriotic duty,” “national security,” or “the public good.” This appeal disproportionately disadvantages “others,” particularly with respect to sex, ethnicity, and economic class, and “legitimates” a process of extraction that threatens the existential conditions of living things: clean water and breathable air. As the latest player in global capitalism’s exploitation of resources and labor, the “new” “good old boy” culture of fracking is a form of what amounts to genocidal profiteering.
Ethnos, 2021
Drawing on ethnographic research in two locations facing the prospect of shale gas exploration in Poland and the UK, I analyse how the future can be simultaneously predetermined and undetermined. Local actors handle this complex experience by relating to fracking infrastructures, fixing the materialities of shale gas as well as cultivating an air of conspiracy around the intricacies of gas developments. I focus on the everyday to broaden the scope of recent scholarly writing on resource indeterminacy that explores how corporate strategies create the futures of resource extraction. The contradictory temporalities that these strategies generate have to be reconciled at the sites of extraction. I call for opening our theorisations up to how resource indeterminacy and assertions of predetermined futures are mediated in the everyday contexts of noncorporate actors. By considering these daily forms of engagement with resource exploration, we gain a more realistic perspective on the potentialities of extraction.
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.
Much of the analysis of hydraulic fracking by the social sciences pictures a discussion of opposing values. This paper seeks to use a multi-disciplinary approach (critical ethnography, philosophy, and cultural studies) to describe how hydraulic fracking can be viewed as a singular event-object of hegemonic dominance over different life-worlds. Through looking at how the frack acts physically, socially, and cognitively we see characteristics of refusal, occlusion, and disempowerment as intrinsic mechanisms belonging to the fracking object.