Western Newfoundland’s Anti-Fracking Campaign: Exploring the Rise of Unexpected Community Mobilization
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This article aims to account for the unexpected rise of community mobilization against hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in western Newfoundland, Canada, since 2012. The oil industry is a significant economic driver in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and historically there has been very limited organized local public opposition to oil extraction in the province. Moreover, the western Newfoundland region is characterized by economic hardship and limited experience mobilizing against development projects, factors unlikely to foster mobilization. Yet in 2012, highly organized, dynamic, and broad-ranging opposition to fracking arose in this region, contributing to the provincial government’s de facto moratorium on fracking and creation of an external review process, the result of which makes fracking unlikely in the near future. Drawing predominantly on fieldwork and interviews from across the region, we attempt to understand this rise of community mobilization first by referencing McAdam and Boudet’s (2012) framework, which explores the key variables of political opportunities, civic capacity, and community context. However, finding that this framework cannot fully account for the rise of mobilization in western Newfoundland, we discuss what we understand as the central factors in this case: the dynamics of local citizens building a globally informed yet locally resonant anti-fracking campaign. Keywords: hydraulic fracturing (fracking); oil development; community mobilization; Western Newfoundland; Newfoundland and Labrador Résumé Cet article vise à prendre en compte la hausse inattendue de la mobilisation de la communauté contre la fracturation (fracking) hydraulique à l'ouest de la province de Terre-Neuve, au Canada, depuis 2012. L'industrie pétrolière est un important moteur économique dans la province de Terre-Neuve et Labrador et historiquement, il y a eu très peu d'opposition publique locale organisée contre l'extraction de pétrole dans la province. En outre, la partie ouest de Terre-Neuve est caractérisée par des difficultés économiques et une expérience limitée dans la mobilisation contre les projets de développement, facteurs peu susceptibles à favoriser la mobilisation. Pourtant, en 2012, une opposition extrêmement organisée, dynamique et étendue, s'élève contre la fracturation dans cette région, contribuant au moratoire provincial de facto sur la fracturation et à la création d'un processus de révision externe, rendant ainsi la fracturation peu probable dans un avenir proche. À partir principalement de données tirées sur le terrain et lors des entrevues à travers la région, nous avons tenté de comprendre cette hausse de la mobilisation de la communauté d'abord en mentionnant les travaux de McAdam et Boudet’s (2012) qui explorent les variables clé des opportunités politiques, la capacité civique et le contexte de la communauté. Toutefois, étant donné que cette étude ne peut pas complètement expliquer l'augmentation de la mobilisation dans l'ouest de la province de Terre-Neuve, nous discutons ce que nous pensons être les facteurs principaux dans ce cas: les dynamiques entre citoyens locaux dans l'élaboration d'une campagne globalement informée, d'anti-fracturation à retombée locale.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.012 | 0.009 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".