Suchergebnisse

Energy is central to the fabric of society. This book revisits the classic notions of energy impacts by examining the social effects of resource extraction and energy projects which are often overlooked. Energy impacts are often reduced to the narrow configurations of greenhouse gas emissions, chemical spills or land use changes. However, this neglects the fact that the way we produce, distribute and consume energy shapes society, political institutions and culture. The authors trace the impacts of contemporary energy and resource extraction developments and explain their significance for the shaping of powerful social imaginaries and a reconfiguration of political and democratic systems. They analyse not only the complex histories and landscapes of industrial mining and energy development, including oil, coal, wind power, gas (fracking) and electrification, but also their significance for contested energy and social futures. Based on ethnographic and interdisciplinary research from around the world, including case studies from Australia, Germany, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Turkey, UK and USA, they document the effects on local communities and how these are often transformed into citizen engagement, protest and resistance. This sheds new light on the relationship between energy and power, reflecting a wide array of pertinent impacts beyond the usual considerations of economic efficiency and energy security. The volume is aimed at advanced students and researchers in anthropology, sociology, human geography, science and technology studies, environmental studies and sustainable development as well as professionals working in the field of impact assessments.

The liberal representative model of democracy is in a crisis. In protest camps, neighbourhood assemblies and through other non-hierarchical initiatives, the Occupy movement as well as other recent anti-austerity movements are redefining democracy as a positive way to engage with this crisis. The more direct democratic models of organisation that they are employing are not aimed at making the politicians regain their lost public legitimacy. Instead, direct democracy is perceived by these movements as a radical alternative to the established forms of representation. Can direct democracy become an actual alternative to representative democracy? This book takes an engaged and in-depth look at the Occupy movement in Ireland and the San Francisco Bay Area in the US in order to present the most up-to-date evidence of the changing nature of popular democratic demands. It takes an insider's perspective to analyse the internal processes and iterations of the movement. Establishing links between social movements and transformations of democracy, as well as underscoring the significance of the recent movements for the future of democracy, this book is essential reading for students, scholars and activists interested in direct democracy, social movements, and radical politics more generally.--

Abstract
An ongoing paradox of egalitarianism is its immanence with various forms of hierarchical organization, including within non-hierarchical social movements. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the cascading effects of egalitarian dynamics that often manifest as anti-state and/or anti-corporate sentiments. UK anti-fracking activists challenged the state and the extractive industry on the basis of equality and justice, fundamental to their notions of democracy. Their experiences highlighted the 'darker side' of popular struggle because the distrust toward the government and industry overflowed and became directed inward. The personal impacts of activism and the challenges of forming non-hierarchical collectivities demonstrate the hidden backstory of egalitarian impulse that emerges from a sense of injustice and persists through personal hardship. It may also foster division, resentment, and conflict.

The UK government's efforts to facilitate shale gas exploration have been matched by a surge of public opposition. The latter has manifested in a broad spectrum of activities in which local communities have "watched fracking"—meaning they have observed, protested, and filmed outside the drilling site, often taking note of when the pumps start and stop. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in northwest England, I analyze residents' various "watching" activities as one dynamic through which they sought to mediate situated modes of sociopolitical erasure. Watching fracking was a form of directly participating in public matters, compensating the watchers for the state's perceived failures and those of corporate models of community engagement. It also helped members of the anti-fracking community distance themselves from the state and their own feelings of alienation. By thus highlighting how disappointment with state formations interacts with an activist subjectivity, anthropologists can deepen our understanding of the changing relationship between state and society.

This article provides an up-to-date overview of the problems connected with European integration. It focuses on the phenomenon of 'enlargement fatigue' and examines its meaning as utilised by the media, EU officials and academics. The article argues that 'enlargement fatigue' is not a new concept since the EU has witnessed many 'symptoms' of fatigue at multiple times in its history. The two main arguments that are often presented in order to explain why the EU has not been able to counter 'enlargement fatigue', namely the insufficiently tight conditionality applied to prospective members and the EU's crisis of confidence and accountability after the failed attempt to introduce the Constitutional Treaty and prolonged Lisbon Treaty ratification process, are insufficient to explain why fatigue has been so persistent a phenomenon. This article argues that the EU's failure to develop a new vision of the organisation and adjust its structural design accordingly is a reason why the Union has not dealt successfully with fatigue. Such a vision would encompass notions of "variable geometry", "avant-garde groups" and make European borders flexible and fuzzy.

Energy is central to the fabric of society. This book revisits the classic notions of energy impacts by examining the social effects of resource extraction and energy projects which are often overlooked. Energy impacts are often reduced to the narrow configurations of greenhouse gas emissions, chemical spills or land use changes. However, this neglects the fact that the way we produce, distribute and consume energy shapes society, political institutions and culture. The authors trace the impacts of contemporary energy and resource extraction developments and explain their significance for the shaping of powerful social imaginaries and a reconfiguration of political and democratic systems. They analyse not only the complex histories and landscapes of industrial mining and energy development, including oil, coal, wind power, gas (fracking) and electrification, but also their significance for contested energy and social futures. Based on ethnographic and interdisciplinary research from around the world, including case studies from Australia, Germany, Kenya, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Turkey, UK and USA, they document the effects on local communities and how these are often transformed into citizen engagement, protest and resistance. This sheds new light on the relationship between energy and power, reflecting a wide array of pertinent impacts beyond the usual considerations of economic efficiency and energy security. The volume is aimed at advanced students and researchers in anthropology, sociology, human geography, science and technology studies, environmental studies and sustainable development as well as professionals working in the field of impact assessments.

To date there have been very few studies that have sought to investigate the crimes, harms and human rights violations associated with the process of 'extreme energy', whereby energy extraction methods grow more 'unconventional' and intense over time as easier to extract resources are depleted. The fields of rural sociology and political science have produced important perception studies but few social impact studies. The field of 'green criminology', while well suited to examining the impacts of extreme energy given its focus on social and environmental 'harms', has produced just one citizen 'complaint' study to date. It is vital that more social and environmental impact studies become part of the local, national and international public policy debate. To this end, in the following paper we seek to move beyond perception studies to highlight the harms that can occur at the planning and approval stage. Indeed, while the UK is yet to see unconventional gas and oil extraction reach the production stage, as this article shows, local communities can suffer significant harms even at the exploration stage when national governments with neoliberal economic agendas are set on developing unconventional resources in the face of considerable opposition and a wealth of evidence of environmental and social harms. This paper takes a broad interdisciplinary approach, inspired by green criminological insights, that shows how a form of 'collective trauma' has been experienced at the exploration stage by communities in the North of England. ; publishedVersion

Kathleen Millar, Reclaiming the Discarded: Life and Labor on Rio's Garbage
Dump. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 248, 2018.Sara Ann Wylie, Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, pp. 424, 2018.

"This cutting-edge and authoritative Handbook covers a broad spectrum of social movement research methodologies, offering expert analysis and detailed accounts of the ways in which research can effectively be carried out on social movements and popular protests. Addressing practice-oriented questions, this Handbook engages with both theoretical and political dimensions, unpacking the multidimensional nature of social movement research. Divided into three thematic sections, this stimulating Handbook dives deep into discussions relating to the methodological challenges raised by researching social movements, the technical question of how such research is conducted, and then to more practical considerations about the uses and applications of movement research. Expert contributors and established researchers utilise real-world examples to explore the methodological challenges from a range of perspectives including classical, engaged, feminist, Black, Indigenous and global Southern viewpoints. The Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Social Movements will not only appeal to experienced researchers, but also to activists who have started to think about researching their own movements and to politically engaged students. It speaks to new and established scholars in relevant disciplines such as sociology, political science, anthropology, geography, development studies, gender studies, and race and ethnic studies, and particularly those looking to better appreciate the different research methods for understanding social movements."--

This cutting-edge and authoritative Handbook covers a broad spectrum of social movement research methodologies, offering expert analysis and detailed accounts of the ways in which research can effectively be carried out on social movements and popular protests. Addressing practice-oriented questions, this Handbook engages with both theoretical and political dimensions, unpacking the multidimensional nature of social movement research for new and established scholars alike and for movement-based as well as academic researchers across many disciplines. Divided into three thematic sections, this stimulating Handbook dives deep into discussions relating to the methodological challenges raised by researching social movements, the technical questions of how such research is conducted, and then to more practical considerations about the uses and applications of movement research. Expert contributors and established researchers utilise real-world examples to explore the methodological challenges from a range of perspectives including classical, engaged, feminist, Black, Indigenous and global Southern viewpoints.

In January 2014, then British Prime Minister David Cameron declared that his government was 'Going all out for Shale.' In November 2019, during an election campaign, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Government imposed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing bringing to a halt industry hopes of developing shale gas in the UK. This paper explores what happened, integrating research employing a mixed methods research design including a review of the literature, expert interviews, household interviews, a series of nationally representative and local surveys, and a content analysis of political testimony. It starts with a brief history of the shale gas debate in the UK and social science research on the issue. It then examines the UK's Shale Gas landscape, and in particular energy policy failure, by considering three issues: first, the framing of the shale gas debate in the national Parliament, exploring the arguments for and against it; second, changing public perceptions and attitudes towards shale gas development; and third, the attitudes and lived experiences of the communities most affected by shale gas exploration activities. These three dimensions are combined to explain the UK Government's shale gas failure to-date. The paper concludes by identifying the lessons learnt from the Government's initial policy failure, both in relation to further shale gas exploration, but also for other technologies required for a future Net-Zero energy system.