TY - JOUR
T1 - A social take on unconventional resources
T2 - Materiality, alienation and the making of shale gas in Poland and the United Kingdom
AU - Szolucha, Anna
PY - 2019/11
Y1 - 2019/11
N2 - Unlike conventional resources, unconventional gas (such as shale gas) is trapped in low permeability rock, from which it does not flow naturally. Hence, its extraction is costly and requires sophisticated technologies. Building on my ethnographic work in north-west England and south-east Poland, I explore people’s engagements with shale gas materialities to show how the category of an ‘unconventional resource’ – framed by geological and engineering sciences – has more than merely technological implications. Instead, shale gas produces new sociotechnical relations by trying to remove itself from social entanglements. These attempts fail to contain the unruly forces of the subsurface and local impacts, bringing the alienating dynamics of resource-making into sharp relief. The irregularities of materials and infrastructural limits, integral to the socially dis-embedded ‘unconventionality’ of the developments, inadvertently turn shale gas projects into a site of the political.
AB - Unlike conventional resources, unconventional gas (such as shale gas) is trapped in low permeability rock, from which it does not flow naturally. Hence, its extraction is costly and requires sophisticated technologies. Building on my ethnographic work in north-west England and south-east Poland, I explore people’s engagements with shale gas materialities to show how the category of an ‘unconventional resource’ – framed by geological and engineering sciences – has more than merely technological implications. Instead, shale gas produces new sociotechnical relations by trying to remove itself from social entanglements. These attempts fail to contain the unruly forces of the subsurface and local impacts, bringing the alienating dynamics of resource-making into sharp relief. The irregularities of materials and infrastructural limits, integral to the socially dis-embedded ‘unconventionality’ of the developments, inadvertently turn shale gas projects into a site of the political.
KW - fracking
KW - shale gas
KW - alienation
KW - materiality
U2 - 10.1016/j.erss.2019.101254
DO - 10.1016/j.erss.2019.101254
M3 - Article
VL - 57
JO - Energy Research and Social Science
JF - Energy Research and Social Science
SN - 2214-6296
M1 - 101254
ER -