Fracking's Future in a Coal Mining Past: Subjectivity Undermined

Item Type Journal Article Author Anastasia Hudgins URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cuag.12005 License © 2013 by the American Anthropological Association Volume 35 Issue 1 Pages 54-59 Publication Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment ISSN 2153-9561 Date 2013 Extra _eprint: https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cuag.12005 DOI 10.1111/cuag.12005 Accessed 2026-06-18 22:05:02 Library Catalog Wiley Online Library Language en Abstract This paper presents initial research on a community of renters in Southwestern Pennsylvania whose homes are adjacent to a hydraulic fracturing site and containment pond. The community is nestled in a rural section of the county where abandoned and working coal mines are neighbors to fracking's new industrial process of energy extraction, which residents describe as moving in like “aliens.” Most have family members who work(ed) in the coal industry, and the identity that emerges from their community of practice, and the attendant institutions and structures that shape their commentary of complaint and benefit are fundamentally informed by factors associated with labor. Coal miners are a more localized, populous, networked labor force with deep roots in the area, while the fracking-related labor is diffuse, disaggregated, and transient. Residents seek ways to frame their concerns and articulate their unease from a position as outsiders, and while buy-in on jobs as a natural outcome of the natural gas industry is high despite evidence to the contrary, critiques about health and the environment are tentative. Short Title Fracking's Future in a Coal Mining Past