Fractured Communities

Risk, Impacts, and Protest Against Hydraulic Fracking in U.S. Shale Regions

Edited by Anthony E. Ladd

SERIES: Nature, Society, and Culture

Rutgers University Press

While environmental disputes and conflicts over fossil fuel extraction have grown in recent years, few issues have been as contentious in the twenty-first century as those surrounding the impacts of unconventional natural gas and oil development using hydraulic drilling and fracturing techniques—more commonly known as “fracking”—on local communities. In Fractured Communities, Anthony E. Ladd and other leading environmental sociologists present a set of crucial case studies analyzing the differential risk perceptions, socio-environmental impacts, and mobilization of citizen protest (or quiescence) surrounding unconventional energy development and hydraulic fracking in a number of key U.S. shale regions. Fractured Communities reveals how this contested terrain is expanding, pushing the issue of fracking into the mainstream of the American political arena.

Fractured Communities is a rigorous, innovative, and informative piece of work, consisting of an impressive list of authors and exceptional scholarship. Thomas Shriver, North Carolina State University

This well-crafted collection of chapters by a number of distinguished researchers addresses some of the most pressing environmental and social problems of our day. Fractured Communities is required reading for those interested in the impacts of energy development on the environment and communities. Richard York, director and professor of environmental studies, University of Oregon

?Weekly Book List, April 20, 2018' by Nina Ayoub Chronicle of Higher Education

Fractured Communities reveals how this contested terrain is expanding, pushing the issue of fracking into the mainstream of the American political arena. Environmental Sociology Newsletter

Fractured Communities is a rigorous, innovative, and informative piece of work, consisting of an impressive list of authors and exceptional scholarship. Thomas Shriver, North Carolina State University

This well-crafted collection of chapters by a number of distinguished researchers addresses some of the most pressing environmental and social problems of our day. Fractured Communities is required reading for those interested in the impacts of energy development on the environment and communities. Richard York, director and professor of environmental studies, University of Oregon

Weekly Book List, April 20, 2018' by Nina Ayoub Chronicle of Higher Education

Fractured Communities reveals how this contested terrain is expanding, pushing the issue of fracking into the mainstream of the American political arena. Environmental Sociology Newsletter

ANTHONY E. LADD is a visiting lecturer in sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

Preface ix
Introduction: Energy Matters 1
Anthony E. Ladd
1 Natural Gas Fracking on Public Lands: The Trickle-down Impacts of Neoliberalism in Ohio’s Utica Shale Region 38
Sherry Cable
2 This (Gas) Land Is Your (Truth) Land? Documentary Films and Cultural Fracturing in Prominent Shale Communities 60
Ion Bogdan Vasi
3 Disturbing the Dead: Community Concerns over Fracking below a Cemetery in the Utica Shale Region 85
Carmel E. Price and James N. Maples
4 Mobilizing against Fracking: Marcellus Shale Protest in Pittsburgh 107
Suzanne Staggenborg
5 Engines, Sentinels, and Objects: Assessing the Impacts of Unconventional Energy Development on Animals in the Marcellus Shale Region 128
Cameron Thomas Whitley
6 Motivational Frame Disputes Surrounding Natural Gas Fracking in the Haynesville Shale 149
Anthony E. Ladd
7 Denial, Disinformation, and Delay: Recreancy and Induced Seismicity in Oklahoma’s Shale Plays 173
Ta mara L. Mix and Da kota K. T. Raynes
8 Contested Colorado: Shifting Regulations and Public Responses to Unconventional Oil Production in the Niobrara Shale Region 198
Stephanie A. Malin, Stacia S. Ryder, and Peter M. Hall
9 Citizen Resistance to Oil Production and Acid Fracking in the Sunshine State 224
Patricia Widener
10 Public Participation and Protest in the Siting of Liquefied Natural Gas Terminals in Oregon 248
Hilary Boudet, Brittany Gaustad, and Trang Tran
Conclusion 271
Anthony E. Ladd
Acknowledgments 287
Notes on Contributors 291
Index 297

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