076 - Special Session. No Fracking Way! Risk, Resistance, and the Mobilization of Protest against Hydraulic Fracking in U.S. Shale Regions

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

The rapid development of unconventional shale oil and natural gas reserves in the U.S. involving horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") has ignited a growing anti-fracking movement that has gained political and cultural traction nationwide since 2008. In shale regions across the country, citizens have mobilized to protest the negative socio-environmental impacts of fracking on their communities, particularly its threats to ground and surface water, roads, air quality, farms, and public health. This thematic session features current research on local resistance, as well as adaption, to hydraulic fracking in three prominent shale regions of the U.S.

Sub Unit

• Special Sessions

Session Organizer

• Anthony E. Ladd, Loyola University-New Orleans

Presider

• Anthony E. Ladd, Loyola University-New Orleans

Individual Presentations

• Power in Knowledge: The Politics of Citizen Water Monitoring in the Marcellus Shale Gas Field - Abby J. Kinchy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Mobilizing Against Fracking: The Origins and Maintenance of Marcellus Shale Protest in Pittsburgh - Suzanne Staggenborg, University of Pittsburgh

• Fracking as a Double-Edged Sword: Differential Responses to Unconventional Energy Development in the Haynesville and Tuscaloosa Shale Communities - Anthony E. Ladd, Loyola University-New Orleans

• Fracking on Public Lands: Trickle-Down Neoliberalism in the Utica Shale Region - Sherry Cable, University of Tennessee