Stacked scale frames: building hegemony for fracking across scales

Abstract

This paper introduces the concept of stacked scale frames and explains how they can legitimate a particular set of interests as general interests. Specifically, it examines how shale gas development proceeded in Pennsylvania, and finds that stacked scale frames were a tool for establishing the legitimacy of fracking. Fracking is a technique for extracting oil and natural gas from shale rock formations using highly pressurised water, sand and chemicals. It has produced dramatic amounts of gas and wealth over the past seven to eight years, but poses risks to the environment and public health that are largely understudied and misunderstood. Previous studies of fracking have explained the rise of fracking in Pennsylvania using analyses of advertisements and corporate promotional materials. This study builds on their work and adds an understanding of the fracking boom seen through the concept of hegemony. The data used in this paper draw from a set of interviews with ‘intellectuals’ in Gramsci's sense of the word: societal elites who mould and shape public opinion. In the case of fracking, these elites included representatives of oil and gas capital, the state, academia, NGOs and civil society living near fracking sites. Overall, the benefits of fracking were recognised by all groups and the costs were less commonly represented. This paper contributes the concept of stacked scale frames to literature on social production of scale in human geography. Stacked scale frames made capitalist economic development appear to benefit a wider section of society spread across multiple scales simultaneously. In contrast, opponents of fracking framed the costs of fracking at individual scales and in a piecemeal fashion. It concludes that anti‐fracking forces, and political ecologists in general, should embrace a critique that draws together social and environmental harms across multiple scales simultaneously.