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Democratic participation and inequitable outcomes: evaluating the social costs of hydraulic fracturing in Colorado

Date

2013-10-22

Authors

Collins, Ashley, speaker

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Abstract

In 2013, the topic of hydraulic fracturing is a highly contested debate in Colorado among community members, elected officials, and energy companies as considerations for energy independence, economic stimulation, and cleaner fuel alternatives are balanced against the need for public health and environmental protections. Natural gas development is rapidly expanding throughout a number of densely populated communities located along the Front Range. Ms. Collins has been conducting exploratory research examining the impacts of drilling since November 2011. This presentation will report on her ongoing ethnographic research that identifies how issues of environmental justice and different forms of activism are coalescing in response to unconventional oil and natural gas projects in Colorado.

Description

Presented at the Fall 2013 Center for Collaborative Conservation (https://collaborativeconservation.org/) Seminar and Discussion Series, "Community, Energy Development and the Environment", October, 22 2013, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. This series focused on the work that the CCC's Collaborative Conservation Fellows have been doing across the Western U.S. and around the world.
Ashley Collins is an anthropology M.A. student at the University of Colorado Denver studying sustainable development and political ecology by exploring the complex relationships that exist between humans and their physical environment. For the past two years, she has examined how social and economic risks are navigated by community members with regards to natural resource management. Her research interests include environmental politics, activism, social movements, and community-based organizing. She embraces visual anthropology as a tool that scholars can utilize to communicate their research in public settings thereby encouraging participants to develop critical interventions that work to shift power back into the hands of the people. Ashley has a B.A. in Anthropology from Metropolitan State University of Denver.
Recorded speech and PowerPoint presentation.

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Subject

environmentalism
ethnography
fracking

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