Quiet voices in the fracking debate: Ambivalence, nonmobilization, and individual action in two extractive communities (Saskatchewan and Pennsylvania)

In North America, regulations on unconventional oil and gas development are emerging and changing in response to growing public pressure from national environmental organizations and local, grassroots alliances. However, rural residents of many “fracked” regions have been quiet about their experiences with the oil and gas industry. What explains this absence of collective action, and what do discontented people do when their communities lack the conditions for mobilization? In southern Saskatchewan (Canada) and northeastern Pennsylvania (US), rural landowners rarely express opposition through collective actions such as demonstrations, petitions, or civil disobedience. The lack of collective mobilization in each case results from ambivalent perceptions of the oil and gas industry, combined with a paucity of organizational capacity and political opportunities. Yet in interviews, some residents express a wide range of grievances and describe their efforts, as individuals, to resist the negative impacts of the oil and gas industry on their lands and livelihoods. The results of this study suggest that nonmobilized communities should not necessarily be understood as sites of consent. Instead, the effects of powerlessness may propel residents to act on their grievances by individually confronting industry while otherwise remaining quiet.