Thesis ID: CBB001567308

Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds: An STS Analysis of Natural Gas Development in the United States (2011)

unapi

Wylie, Sara Ann (Author)


Helmreich, Stefan
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT


Publication Date: 2011
Edition Details: Advisor: Helmreich, Stefan.
Language: English

Natural gas extraction in the United States in the early 21st century has transformed social, physical, legal and biological landscapes. The technique of hydraulic fracturing, which entails the high-pressure injection into subsurface shale formations of synthetic chemical mixtures, has been viewed by the natural gas industry as a practice of great promise. But there is another side to the story. The first half of this dissertation explores an innovative scientific approach to studying the possible deleterious impacts on human health and the environment of the release of chemicals used in gas extraction. Via participant-observation within a small scientific advocacy organization, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), I follow the development of a database of chemicals used in natural gas extraction, a database that seeks to document not only what these chemicals are (many are proprietary), but also what sorts of bodily and ecological effects these substances may have. I analyze ethnographically how TEDX transformed an information vacuum around fracturing and generated fierce regional and national debates about the public health effects of this activity. The second portion of the dissertation expands TEDX's databasing methodology by reporting on a set of online user-generated databasing and mapping tools developed to interconnect communities encountering the corporate forces and chemical processes animating gas development. Shale gas extraction is an intensive technological practice and requires the delicate calibration of corporate, governmental, and legal apparatuses in order to proceed. The industry operates at county, state, and federal levels, and has in many instances been able to organize regulatory environments suited to rapid and lucrative gas extraction. In the midst of such multi-scalar deterritorializing forces, communities may have little legal or technical recourse if they think that they have been subject to chemical and corporate forces that undermine their financial, bodily, and social security. ExtrAct, a research group I co-founded and directed with artist and technologist Chris Csikszentmihalyi, sought to intervene in these processes by developing a suite of online mapping and databasing tools through which "gas patch" communities could share information, network, study and respond to industry activity across states. Using ExtrAct as an example this dissertation explores how social sciences and the academy at large can invest in developing research tools, methods, and programs designed for non-corporate ends, perhaps redressing in the process the informational and technical imbalances faced by communities dealing with largescale multinational industries whose infrastructure and impacts are largely invisible to public scrutiny. The dissertation describes one potential method for such engaged scientific and social scientific research: an iterative, ethnographically informed process that I term "STS in Practice." (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)

...More

Description Cited in Dissertation Abstracts International-A 73/06, Dec 2012. Proquest Document ID: 940885958.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001567308/

Similar Citations

Book Mary E. Thomas; Bruce Braun; (2023)
Settling the Boom: The Sites and Subjects of Bakken Oil (/isis/citation/CBB539262562/)

Article Jérôme Denis; Samuel Goëta; (October 2017)
Rawification and the careful generation of open government data (/isis/citation/CBB536968211/)

Book Lehner, Peter; Deans, Bob; (2010)
In Deep Water: The Anatomy of a Disaster, the Fate of the Gulf, and Ending Our Oil Addiction (/isis/citation/CBB001033677/)

Article Priest, Tyler; (2014)
Hubbert's Peak: The Great Debate over the End of Oil (/isis/citation/CBB001320694/)

Article Francesco Gerali; Jenny Gregory; (2017)
Understanding and Finding Oil Over the Centuries: The Case of the Wallachian Petroleum Company in Romania (/isis/citation/CBB904625812/)

Article Jill E. Hopke; Molly Simis; (2015)
Discourse Over a Contested Technology on Twitter: A Case Study of Hydraulic Fracturing (/isis/citation/CBB231479931/)

Book Cockrell, Alan; (2005)
Drilling Ahead: The Quest for Oil in the Deep South, 1945-2005 (/isis/citation/CBB000700529/)

Book Sebastián Ureta; Patricio Flores; (2022)
Worlds of Gray and Green: Mineral Extraction as Ecological Practice (/isis/citation/CBB555291139/)

Book Theriot, Jason P.; (2014)
American Energy, Imperiled Coast: Oil and Gas Development in Louisiana's Wetlands (/isis/citation/CBB001422286/)

Book Maass, Peter; (2009)
Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil (/isis/citation/CBB001033678/)

Article Alex Nading; (2016)
Evidentiary Symbiosis: On Paraethnography in Human–Microbe Relations (/isis/citation/CBB414849345/)

Book Amy Marie Hay; (2021)
The Defoliation of America: Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protests (/isis/citation/CBB039979128/)

Book Brice, William R.; (2009)
Myth, Legend, Reality: Edwin Laurentine Drake and the Early Oil Industry (/isis/citation/CBB001033680/)

Article Spencer, Jeff A.; (2010)
Early Commercialized Views of Spindletop, Texas and Jennings, Louisiana Oil Fields (/isis/citation/CBB001033666/)

Article Amelia Fiske; (June 2018)
Dirty hands: The toxic politics of denunciation (/isis/citation/CBB443623389/)

Authors & Contributors
Valentina Roxo
Jenny Gregory
Fiske, Amelia
Goëta, Samuel
Nading, Alexander M.
Patricio Flores
Concepts
Petroleum industry
Oil; natural gas
Petroleum drilling
Environmental degradation
Energy resources and technologies
Technology and government
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
19th century
20th century, early
Places
United States
Ploiești (Romania)
United Kingdom
Nicaragua
Gulf of Mexico
Romania
Institutions
Twitter (firm)
United States. Geological Survey
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment