Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds

Experimental Futures

by Sara Ann Wylie

From flammable tap water and sick livestock to the recent onset of hundreds of earthquakes in Oklahoma, the impact of fracking in the United States is far-reaching and deeply felt. In Fractivism Sara Ann Wylie traces the history of fracking and the ways scientists and everyday people are coming together to hold accountable an industry that has managed to evade regulation. Beginning her story in Colorado, Wylie shows how nonprofits, landowners, and community organizers are creating novel digital platforms and databases to track unconventional oil and gas well development and document fracking's environmental and human health impacts. These platforms model alternative approaches for academic and grassroots engagement with the government and the fossil fuel industry. A call to action, Fractivism outlines a way forward for not just the fifteen million Americans who live within a mile of an unconventional oil or gas well, but for the planet as a whole.

Genres: Ethnography, Environment

424 pages, Hardcover

Published February 26, 2018

About the author

Sara Ann Wylie is Assistant Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Health Sciences at Northeastern University.

Reviews

[Einat Gavish]

Read it for class, but honestly an excellent analysis of fracking and how the reality is much worse than I imagined before. On top of that, I thought the critiques of academia and its role in the proliferation of fracking as well as the role of technology-both to help and hurt the cause-were very interesting (if at times depressing and calling for self-reflection)