Call for papers
Internal Geographical Union Regional Conference, Quebec City, 6-10 August 2018
Human geographies of unconventional oil and gas extraction
Martina A Caretta and Nicholas Stump, West Virginia University, USA
Ethnographic research around unconventional oil and gas development is lagging. This session is aimed at gathering scholars working on unconventional oil and gas developments with a qualitative methodological approach. Ethnographic research
has the potential to impact every facet of the energy sector, because public consensus and social license to operate are critical for this sector. Public controversy over unconventional oil and gas development has led to regulatory delays and substantial legal
and economic uncertainty for industry and landowners alike. Additionally, lack of knowledge around stakeholders’ lived everyday experiences of unconventional oil and gas developments allows for predatory behaviors by the industry disregarding health or societal
concerns. Territorial conflicts surrounding unconventional natural resource extraction are not just land-based, but revolve around also water. Emerging social science research has attempted to better elicit and evaluate stakeholders’ viewpoints and experiences
around unconventional oil and gas developments (Malin and DeMaster, 2016; Cotton, 2015; Schafft et al., 2013; Cotton, 2013; Jaquet, 2012; Finewood et al., 2012; Anderson, 2009). This existing social science research, however, suffers from being divorced from
an understanding of existing legal frameworks and the potential pathways through which insights from social science may be used to inform and shape policies.
We invite local, transnational, comparative, intersectional case studies on unconventional oil and gas extraction focusing on:
- Land- and water-based disputes;
- Everyday experiences of unconventional natural resource extraction;
- The disruption of the hydrosocial cycle due to conventional and unconventional natural resource extraction.
- Collectives/activist groups organizing against extractive industries;
- Gender analysis of consequences of the extractive industries;
- Ethnographic and methodological approaches to the study of unconventional oil and gas extraction
Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words by March 8th to Martina Angela Caretta ([log in to unmask])
References
Cotton, M. (2013). Shale Gas—Community Relations: NIMBY or Not? Integrating Social Factors Into Shale Gas Community Engagements - - Natural Gas & Electricity –
Cotton, M. (2015) "Stakeholder perspectives on shale gas fracking: a Q-method study of environmental discourses." Environment and Planning A 47.9 (2015): 1944-1962.
Finewood, M. H., & Stroup, L. J. (2012). Fracking and the Neoliberalization of the Hydro-Social Cycle in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.
Journal of Contemporary Water Research & Education, 147(1), 72–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1936-704X.2012.03104.x
Jacquet, J. B. (2012). Landowner attitudes toward natural gas and wind farm development in northern Pennsylvania. Energy Policy, 50, 677-688.
Malin, S. A., & DeMaster, K. T. (2016). A devil’s bargain: Rural environmental injustices and hydraulic fracturing on Pennsylvania’s farms.
Journal of Rural Studies, 47, Part A, 278–290.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2015.12.015
Schafft, K. A., Borlu, Y., & Glenna, L. (2013).
The relationship between Marcellus Shale gas development in Pennsylvania and local perceptions of risk and opportunity. Rural Sociology, 78(2), 143-166.
Dr. Martina Angela Caretta
Assistant Professor
West Virginia University
Department of Geology & Geography
Brooks Hall, Office 349
PO Box 6300
Morgantown, WV 26506
Ph + 1 304 293 11 07 Fx + 1 304.293.6522
http://pages.geo.wvu.edu/~mcaretta/