The Fracking Frontier in the United States: A Case Study of Foreign Investment, Civil Liberties and Land Ethics in the Shale Industry

This article provides a fresh perspective on the unconventional oil and gas (hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’) industry in the Appalachian and Midwestern regions of the United States. It presents a case study of this industry in relation to development, democracy and the environment. The article utilizes neocolonialism as a heuristic device and analyses the fracking industry in relation to processes of capital expansion in resource frontiers. It identifies a two-pronged paradox at the heart of the US energy independence rhetoric. First, the political-economic reality is one in which the companies involved in promoting energy independence are in fact dependent on considerable amounts of foreign direct investment. Second, despite the purported ‘freedom’ offered through such energy sources, many legal measures associated with the industry ultimately detract from civil liberties, rights to private land and local sovereignty over decision making. Centrally, this article argues that political and economic relationships within this industry may undermine democratic participation and representative government. The case study demonstrates how relationships of coloniality in the fracking industry involve dynamics of land loss, ethical shifts in relation to land, and a lack of local property rights controls that are derivative of natural resource extraction on resource frontiers.

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