What is it about?
The protests against recent proposals for exploring and extracting shale gas in Romania are analysed. Examining the specific demands formulated by protesters, we investigate the articulation of a counter-discourse on the social control of natural resources and on the ecological risks involved in the shale gas industry. At the same time, the protests indicate a destabilisation of the post-communist neoliberal consensus by opposing the privatization and deregulation of natural resources. Using a critical political ecology framework, we identify the formation of a specific ‘technonatural’ environment of shale gas, which includes economic interests, political decisions and ideological representations specific to the neoliberalization of natural resources.
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Photo by Benjamin Massello on Unsplash
Why is it important?
It shows the desire for the social control of natural resources and the ecological risks involved in the shale gas industry.
Perspectives
The neoliberalization of natural resources must be carried on in other studies so that we should better understand economic interests, political decisions and ideological representations in different contexts.
Dr Remus Cretan
west university of Timisoara
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: ‘We are not the Wild West’: anti-fracking protests in Romania, Environmental Politics, March 2015, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2014.1000639.
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