People Protecting Place: Anti-Fracking Campaigns in the United Kingdom

This study is concerned with the anti-fracking campaigns that have emerged in the UK in recent years, and on which only a limited social science literature has been developed. Specifically, this thesis is guided by a particular interest in understanding protest participation with regards to the potential influence of place attachments, conceptualised via Olcese and Savage’s (2015) ‘social aesthetic’, as well as through building on existing literature regarding political opportunity structures. In this, efforts are made to develop a more localised conception of opportunity structures which emphasises the role of (perceptions toward) local authorities who play a key role in the planning process and may similarly oppose the pro-fracking agenda of national government. As such, this research asks: to what extent do place-based approaches complement traditional social movement theories in understanding the motivations behind participation in anti-fracking campaigns? In this way, it provides an up-to-date analysis of an issue of contemporary significance, seeking to contribute empirically and theoretically to both the burgeoning fracking-specific scholarship and to the wider body of social movement studies literature. The themes of interest are examined through a protest event analysis alongside a series of semi-structured interviews with community-based protectors. This event analysis drew on activist sources, recording 1006 protest events across 69 counties for the period between 2011 and 2017. It is found that, unlike national-level opportunity structures, those on the local level are seen to be open to campaigns, yet they have weak output structures given national government’s overruling of local authority decisions that run counter to their pro-fracking policy agenda. Regarding place, it is argued that in addition to local opportunity structures, concerns around industrialisation and the loss of an area’s valued characteristics have played an influential role in protest participation and that, while not a common theme, glimpses of the social aesthetic have been seen. As such, the ideas offered by Olcese and Savage are maintained to provide an evocative means by which to conceptualise and explore the relationship between people, place and protest