ABSTRACT

Drawing on ethnographic research in two locations facing the prospect of shale gas exploration in Poland and the UK, I analyse how the future can be simultaneously predetermined and undetermined. Local actors handle this complex experience by relating to fracking infrastructures, fixing the materialities of shale gas as well as cultivating an air of conspiracy around the intricacies of gas developments. I focus on the everyday to broaden the scope of recent scholarly writing on resource indeterminacy that explores how corporate strategies create the futures of resource extraction. The contradictory temporalities that these strategies generate have to be reconciled at the sites of extraction. I call for opening our theorisations up to how resource indeterminacy and assertions of predetermined futures are mediated in the everyday contexts of noncorporate actors. By considering these daily forms of engagement with resource exploration, we gain a more realistic perspective on the potentialities of extraction.

摘要

我利用在波兰和英国两个面临页岩气勘探前景的地点进行的民族志研究，分析了如何同时预测和不确定未来。当地参与者通过与水力压裂基础设施相关、确定页岩气的重要性以及围绕天然气开发的复杂性营造阴谋气氛来处理这种复杂的经历。我关注日常生活，以扩大最近关于资源不确定性的学术著作的范围，探讨企业战略如何创造资源开采的未来。这些策略产生的矛盾的时间性必须在提取地点进行协调。我呼吁开放我们的理论，探讨资源的不确定性和对预定未来的断言如何在非企业行为者的日常环境中得到调节。通过考虑这些日常参与资源勘探的方式，我们对开采潜力有了更现实的认识。