Anti-Fracking Movements: Citizen Networks for Environmental Justice

Drawing on case studies from the UK, Spain, Germany, Colombia and Argentina, this book analyses how the anti-fracking movement has emerged as a powerful citizen platform with an ability to mobilize large numbers, change public sentiment and government opinion, and challenge powerful actors.

In response to the fracking boom, anti-fracking groups have emerged throughout the world and are playing a pivotal role in exposing different instances of substantive environmental and ecological injustice. Although the ability of affected residents to draw upon translocal slogans such as ＂not in my backyard＂ (NIMBY) has been powerful and has helped the anti-fracking movement avoid becoming spatially restricted, little is known about the formation of these broad-based coalitions.

Combining theoretical insights from green criminology and social movement studies, the authors address three critical questions: What role do shared claims of justice play in motivating citizens to join the anti-fracking movement? What are the strategies, actions and networks of the anti-fracking movement? Finally, how has the anti-fracking movement shifted from the local to the national, and then to global, levels?

Damien Short is Director of the Human Rights Consortium (HRC) and a Professor of Human Rights and Environmental Justice at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK. He is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Human Rights and Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Human Rights in the Commonwealth. He has also worked with a variety of NGOs including Amnesty International, War on Want, Survival International, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs; and with a range of campaign groups including Eradicating Ecocide, Biofuelwatch, Climate Justice Collective and the UK Tar Sands Network. He currently advises local anti-fracking groups in the UK and county councils on the human rights implications of fracking.

Malayna Raftopoulos is an Associate Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.