Postdoctoral Fellowship: Energy, Risk and Urgency - Emergent Public Perceptions of Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction

这个博士后研究项目旨在研究美国和英国公众对非常规石油和天然气开采技术的态度。具体而言，该项目将重点关注有关紧迫性的想法，因为它们出现在公众对水力压裂（压裂）技术的风险，好处和影响的紧急看法中，以获取深层页岩中的石油和天然气。博士后将从事现有的定性数据的比较分析如何在美国和英国的日常生活中的不同群体重视有关新的非常规石油和天然气技术的经济，环境，社会和政治方面的紧迫性的想法。这个项目的结果将是感兴趣的STS学者，环境科学家和工程师，行业专家，和政策制定者在多个领域的工作，包括能源系统，气候变化，环境正义;更广泛地说，他们将感兴趣的任何人都有利益的看法和预期行为的不同公众对现在和未来的能源开采，生产和消费。将通过出版物、编写白色报告和政策简报广泛传播研究成果。技术摘要拟议的项目是一项跨国比较案例分析，通过紧迫性的透镜，分析水力压裂技术对两个研究国家不同公众的社会价值观、关系、生计和做法的影响。一个详细的，定性的帐户如何紧急操作在非常规提取技术的公众态度将有助于新的学术理解STS和风险认知文献的责任，公平，信任和治理，以及更广泛的问题，能源和社会的关键辩论，在新兴领域的负责任的创新。拟议的对紧迫性的关注将为审查技术争议提供一个新的视角，并将使理解其对风险和效益感知放大的影响的方法系统化。这项跨国比较研究将更清楚地说明每个国家在处理能源未来方面的进程及其历史特点。拟议的分析将使用从2014年10月召开的四次公共审议研讨会上收集的现有一套广泛的定性数据进行，该研讨会由包括本项目的主要研究者和共同主要研究者在内的一个合作团队召开。

General Audience Summary This postdoctoral research project proposes to examine public attitudes in the US and the UK on unconventional oil and gas extraction technologies. Specifically, the project will focus on ideas about urgency as they figure in emergent public views on the risks, benefits and impacts of technologies used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to access oil and gas in deep shale rock. The postdoc will engage in a comparative analysis of existing qualitative data on how diverse groups of everyday people in the US and the UK attach ideas about urgency to economic, environmental, social, and political aspects of new unconventional oil and gas technologies. The results of this project will be of interest to STS scholars, environmental scientists and engineers, industry specialists, and policymakers working in multiple fields including energy systems, climate change, environmental justice; more broadly, they will be of interest to any who have a stake in in the perceptions and anticipated behavior of diverse publics regarding present and future energy extraction, production, and consumption. Broad dissemination of research results will be achieved through publications, and through the preparation of a white paper report and a policy brief. Technical Summary The proposed project is a cross-national comparative case analysis of the effects of fracking technologies on diverse publics' social values, relationships, livelihoods and practices in the two study countries through the lens of urgency. A detailed, qualitative account of how urgency operates in emergent public attitudes on unconventional extraction technologies will contribute new scholarly understanding to key debates within both STS and risk perception literatures on responsibility, equity, trust, and governance, and broader issues of energy and society, all critical issues in the emerging field of Responsible Innovation. The proposed focus on urgency will provide a new perspective for examining technological controversies, and will systematize approaches for understanding its effects on amplification of risk and benefit perception. The comparative cross-national study will provide greater clarity about the processes in play in each country and their historical specificities in approaches to energy futures. The proposed analysis will be conducted using an existing set of extensive qualitative data collected from four public deliberation workshops convened in October 2014 by a collaborative team including the PI and co-PI of this project.