Essay Sample on Fractivism: Holding Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable for Its Impact

Introduction

Fractivism covers the consequences associated with the extraction of fossil fuel across the United States. The book's author, Sara Ann Wylie, is a legendary anthropologist with a considerable commitment to address the effects of fossil fuel extraction. Wylie (2018) uses her book to cover the historical impact of fracking in the United States. She also looks at how scientists and people are collaborating to hold accountable the country's highly unregulated fossil fuel industry. She identifies flammable tap water, an increase in the number of earthquakes experienced in Oklahoma, and diseased livestock as some of the effects associated with fracking. Wylie illustrates the commitment of different environmental stakeholders in creating vital digital databases and platforms to track the impact of fossil fuel extraction. Some of the stakeholders engaged in this strategic action include landowners, nonprofits, and influential community organizers. These digital platforms provide multiple alternative approaches not only for grassroots but also for academic engagement with the government and the United States' fossil fuel industry (Kotcher, Maibach, & Choi, 2019). Arguably, Fractivism represents a unique call to action that provides a way forward not only for Americans living in the vicinity of the oil and gas wells but for the entire world.

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Critical Review

The book begins with a typical ethnographic approach as Wylie spends her afternoon with a rancher. Their engagement links the audience to the challenges facing communities affected by the eccentric intrusion extraction of fossil fuel and gas (Wylie, 2018). The patch residents provide real experiences of the effects associated with unconventional gas drilling, such as reduced health conditions and deaths. Their stories sharply contrast with the PR images that connect domestic energy to the idea of the white middle class and national security. Wylie's comprehensive review of the literature concerning the socio-political relationships associated with mining industries helps to bring out their adverse effects. Therefore, Fractivism explores the strategies that corporate and regulatory agencies use to render communities and their problems invisible.

Wylie (2018) argues that the alignment between these agencies facilitates the extraction of natural gas despite its adverse effects on the community. As a result, Wylie relies on the experiences of the communities residing beside gas extraction firms to create a highly engaged research project. This project concerns the need for developing a digital database and platform to address the problems created by the extraction of fossil fuels. Probably, Wylie drew her insightful analysis from her previous anthropological studies conducted from 2004 to 2011 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This time also represents a historic boom in the availability and extraction of natural gas from Colorado to the northern part of Appalachia. MIT also served as a unique social setting in which Wylie investigated the impact of a research center, funded by the unconventional fossil fuel industry, on the community concerns (Perry, 2013). Her research revealed that MIT's production of technology and scientific knowledge-empowered corporations to the extent of ignoring local community concerns.

However, identifying the specific types of knowledge production with the capacity to expose and interrupt the corporation's process remained at the heart of Fractivism. As a result, Wylie (2018) came up with a theoretical model to address this challenge by focusing on Colborn Theo's previous work. The latter was an environmental health scientist who helped in not only the identification but also the foundation of the endocrine disruption study. Theo's approach to civic science was also crucial in the development of the first database for addressing the effects of natural gas extraction. The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX) database remains a vital tool in contemporary society. TEDX helps communities to understand and record the consequences of the effect associated with exposure to gases emitted from fossil fuel extraction activities (Kotcher et al., 2019). Wylie's theoretical model highlighted her research that aimed to minimize all forms of power differences that characterize the field of scientific inquiry. Wylie also believed that these power differences also affect technical infrastructures.

As a result, Wylie (2018) continued with her goal of working with communities to develop various online tools for documenting their experiences with harmful gases emitted from petrochemical industries. The first tool, Landman Report Card (LRC), was a unique platform that allowed people to share their experiences regarding the effects of fossil fuel extraction activities. Wylie also developed the WellWatch website that relied on public health to collect and share knowledge generated from the community about the impact of the fossil fuel industry. Nonetheless, Fractivism relies on the WellWatch website to uncover the ability of ethnography through grassroots and citizen science activism. Therefore, Wylie emphasizes the need for collaboration between different stakeholders in addressing problems created by the extraction of fossil fuel (Perry, 2013). These vital stakeholders include members of the affected community, engineers, scientists, and artists.

Wylie (2018) also sought to address the technical, legal, and ethical issues associated with fossil fuel extraction by generating a new community database. However, she reflects on the way activists opposed the use of online technology. These activists argued that online technology was a tool for dividing the community and, in turn, preventing the formation of collective action. Wylie enhances the intrinsic value of this chapter through her compelling writing approach. Her writing style represents a unique call for action to resisting the threat posed by the unconventional extraction of fossil fuel. Wylie insists that activists' commitment to corrupt databases plays a crucial role in bringing down most of the websites dedicated to addressing community problems. As a result, the destruction of these websites highlights some of the limitations associated with Wylie's study. Such sites contain highly-influential testimonies generated by members of the community to address their challenges (Perry, 2013; Kotcher et al., 2019). Hence, the sustainability of such sites is critical in ensuring that communities champion for their rights amid environmental pollution.

Conclusion

Fractivism is a timely and thrilling scholarly contribution whose relevance goes beyond the scope of people focused on energy anthropology. Fractivism is helpful to a wide range of social scientists. The book can inform teaching and research on numerous topics, including digital humanities, environmental health, and applied anthropology. The relevance of Fractivism goes beyond the academic field. The book is not only helpful to the communities living around fossil fuel extraction sites, but also to the stakeholders engaged addressing the effects of these mining activities. Therefore, Fractivism is a source of numerous strategic tools vital in addressing the challenges associated with fossil fuel extraction across the world.

References

Kotcher, J., Maibach, E., & Choi, W. (2019). Fossil fuels are harming our brains: identifying key messages about the health effects of air pollution from fossil fuels. BMC Public Health, 19(1), 1079. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6712833/.

Perry, S. (2013). "Using ethnography to monitor the community health implications of onshore unconventional oil and gas developments: examples from Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale." New Solutions, 23(1): 33-53. Retrieved from: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2190/NS.23.1.d.

Wylie, S. A. (2018). Fractivism: Corporate bodies and chemical bonds. Durham: Duke University Press.