Quiet voices in the fracking debate: Ambivalence, nonmobilization, and individual action in two extractive communities (Saskatchewan and Pennsylvania)

<b>Engaging the Underground: An STS Field in Formation</b>

“…This water-intensive extraction technique, coupled with failures in the underground infrastructure used to transport it to the surface, can damage human health and wellbeing by contaminating water and air. The rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing activity close to US communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Colorado prompted scholars to track the environmental and social risks and harms, along with forms of community and political organization to mitigate them (Kroepsch 2016;Perry 2012;Espig and de Rijke 2016;Willow et al 2014;Eaton and Kinchy 2016;Partridge et al 2017;Smith 2017a, 2017b). Citizen science and other forms of public engagement 7 Other recent STS contributions to making sense of the underground have addressed topics ranging from the interpretation of remote data sources in petroleum reservoir geology to decision making about geothermal energy to conspiracy stories about the definition of geological boundaries around protected sites, among other subjects with public relevance (Almklov 2008;Almklov and Hepsø 2011;Raman 2013;Gilbert 2015;Rahder 2015;Barandiaran 2015;Gross 2015;Pijpers 2016;Bleicher and Gross 2016;Sareen 2016;Oskarsson 2017). in science have been key features of these controversies, as activists and concerned communities aim to fill the gaps in "undone science" (Kinchy 2017;Kinchy, Parks, and Jalbert 2016;Malone et al 2015;Jalbert and Kinchy 2016;Wylie et al 2016;Vera 2016;Zilliox and Smith 2018).…”

“No Fracking Way” vs. “Drill Baby Drill”: A Restructuring of Who Is Pitted Against Whom in the Narrative Policy Framework

“… Other scholars have examined hydraulic fracturing narrative in the context of political gridlock, finding that competing coalitions created a temporally dynamic conflict around hydraulic fracturing in New York in which each side continually reframed the conflict, with the stronger (anti–hydraulic fracturing) coalition successfully interrupting the weaker (pro–hydraulic fracturing) narrative (Dodge & Lee, ); vis‐à‐vis discourse analysis, inferring that anti–hydraulic fracturing coalitions are successful because they expand the debate to include issues of local power and democracy (Bomberg, ); and about political action, concluding that residents feel powerless to voice dissent against the oil and gas industry (Eaton & Kinchy, ; Simonelli, ). …”

Rural Landowners, Energy Leasing, and Patterns of Risk and Inequality in the Shale Gas Industry

“…An interested reader of the environmental inequality literature would be forgiven for believing that collective, oppositional mobilization is the sole source of such resistance, but we demonstrate that it may take on a more diverse set of forms than is often acknowledged. Research has often focused on the question of why oppositional mobilization does not emerge in cases where inequality and risk are present, including in the shale oil and gas industry (Bell ; Davidson ; Eaton and Kinchy ; McAdam and Boudet ). This study suggests that, at least in the case of shale gas, a lack of mobilization may simply be due in part to the fact that a large percentage of those directly affected had robust access to the siting process and are satisfied with their experience, a conclusion supported by other recent research (Dokshin ; Jacquet ; Jerolmack and Walker ).…”

“…For working‐class households, this logic is structured by poor economic prospects and a moral sense of individuality (Malin ; Popke ). This results in what Bullard () refers to as “economic blackmail,” or what Malin and DeMaster () refer to as a “devil’s bargain.” This logic offers a strong explanandum for local support of environmentally hazardous facilities that has been documented across multiple industries (Wright and Boudet ), including shale gas (Dokshin ; Eaton and Kinchy ).…”