Fracking and epistemic injustice: A feminist critique of knowledge formation

Abstract

The expansion of fracking, an intensive form of hydrocarbon extraction, has been met with increasing public hostility, spanning a diverse range of interests and political allegiances. However, to date, few authors have engaged with the role of gender and women activists. In this paper, I consider how gender and gendered ideas have been used as a resource to underpin fracking protests in the USA and UK. I find that a problematic gendered binary has emerged that undermined the veracity of anti-fracking protestors’ opposition and aligns with modes of planning governance that valorize universal and objective forms of knowledge. Drawing upon a feminist epistemological stance, I turn to a planning dispute over noise levels in Lancashire, England, to explore the limits to current forms of knowledge production. I argue that specific actors, behaviours, and forms of knowledge become framed as gendered and unreliable in the sphere of technical decision making, diminishing our understanding of the complexities of human experience and subjectivity within spatial planning.