AAG 2016 – Call for Papers
Session Title: Multi-Scalar Conflicts over Hydraulic Fracturing
Organizers: Sarah T. Romano, University of Northern Colorado
Jen Schneider, Boise State University
Sponsors: Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group
Energy and Environment Specialty Group
Political Geography Specialty Group
Session description: This session seeks to examine multi-scalar conflicts generated by the practice and politics of hydraulic fracturing and how these conflicts, in turn, shape environmental governance. Various forms of conflict (broadly defined) have accompanied the expansion as well as the prospect of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in the United States, Europe, and Latin America (Fry 2013; Kuuskraa 2011; Mares 2012; Weile 2014). Some conflicts—evident in social movements, protests, policy struggles and negotiations, and more—have been documented (see for example, Carre 2012; Toan 2015; Schneider 2015; Smith & Ferguson, 2013; Svampa 2015; Vesalon & Cretan 2015). Yet there is more to be gained from systematic examination of these conflicts within environmental governance frameworks. How do conflicts over unconventional oil and gas development emerge and what explains the particular shape they take? How do the politics of scale, including the multi-sectoral character of fracking, influence these conflicts? How do these conflicts influence and/or help to shape environmental governance in practice? The session hopes to include papers covering diverse regions (including Global North and South) and contexts globally.
Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:
- The influence of variance in the social, socio-economic, physical, and/or political context of hydraulic fracturing on resistance, negotiation, and conflict;
- The explicitly cross-scalar and/or multi-sectoral dimensions of fracking-related conflicts; for example, state-local conflicts over fracking, including the politics of “banning bans” and other examples of crises of jurisdiction;
- Universities or other social institutions as sites of fracking and/or fossil fuel company investment/donations (or “frackademia”);
- Unexpected forms of collaboration between/among state, industry, and/or social actors within conflicts over fracking;
- Examination of how conflicts are shaping/have shaped governance of hydraulic fracturing at local, national, or international scales.
Key words: Hydraulic fracturing, fracking, conflicts, environmental governance, scalar politics.
Please send abstracts to Sarah Romano (sarah.romano@unco.edu) or Jen Schneider (jenschneider@boisestate.edu) by October 16, 2015 (5 pm). Decisions will be communicated to potential participants by October 20.
References
Carre, N. (2012) Environmental Justice and Hydraulic Fracturing: The Ascendency of Grassroots Populism in Policy Determination. Journal of Social Change 4(1): 1-13.
Fry, M. (2013) Urban Gas Drilling and Distance Ordinances in the Texas Barnett Shale. Energy Policy 62: 79-89.
Kuuskraa, V. et al. (2011) World Shale Gas Resources: An Initial Assessment of 14 Regions Outside the United States. Prepared for U.S. Energy Information Administration. July.
Mares, D. (2012) The New Energy Landscape in Latin America: Shale Gas in Latin America. InterAmerican Development Bank.
Toan, K. 2015. Not Under My Backyard: The Battle Between Colorado and Local Governments Over Hydraulic Fracturing. Colo. Nat. Resources, Energy & Envtl. L. Review 26(1): 1-67.
Schneider, J. Frackademia, Divestment, and the Limits of Academic Freedom. Presented at the Conference on Communication and the Environment, International Environmental Communication Association. Boulder, CO. June 13, 2015.
Smith, M.F. and D.P. Ferguson. (2013) “Fracking democracy”: Issue management and locus of policy decision-making in the Marcellus Shale gas drilling debate. Public Relations Review 39: 377-386.
Svampa, M. (2015) Commodities Consensus: Neoextractivism and Enclosure of the Commons in Latin America. South Atlantic Quarterly 114(1): 65-82.
Vesalon, L. and R. Cretan. (2015) ‘We are not the Wild West’: anti-fracking protests in Romania. Environmental Politics 24 (2): 288–307.
Weile, R. (2014) Beyond the Fracking Ban in France. Journal of European Management & Public Affairs Studies 1(2): 11-16.