Land of Extraction: Property, Fracking, and Settler Colonialism

2024 Outstanding Academic Title, given by Choice Reviews Explores fracking's dual impact on settler colonial culture and sustainability Through meticulous research and poignant storytelling, Land of Extraction unravels the complex web of relationships between humans, places, and the environment, all bound by the concept of private property. It presents a thought-provoking analysis of how settler colonial culture imposes limits on environmental politics. Drawing on real-life events, fictional portrayals of fossil-fuel driven apocalypses, and firsthand ethnographic accounts of the fracking and pipeline boom in West Virginia, Rebecca R. Scott argues that the American dream's promise of empowerment through property ownership actually restricts action against extractive industries and hampers the progress of environmental justice coalitions. As the ever-expanding reach of natural gas and pipeline industries takes its toll on communities, the book reveals the fractures in landowners' reliance on private property, opening the door to more sustainable futures. A powerful call to reevaluate our perspectives and challenge the status quo, this book will leave readers questioning the foundations of our society and the possibilities that lie ahead.

About the Author :
Rebecca R. Scott is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Missouri. She is the author of Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Identity in the Appalachian Coalfields.

Review :
"Land of Extraction is a must-read for anyone who cares about the diminishing social and ecological welfare of the continental U.S. as well as anywhere that can still be exploited for natural resources. As someone with roots in West Virginia, I grew up in a sacrifice zone and attest to this brilliant study of environmental injustice as a wake-up call to abolish colonialist, corporate profiteering at the expense of all life. Listen and heed Scott's call for change because the chickens are coming home to roost." (Beth Stephens, co-author of Assuming the Ecosexual Position: The Earth As Lover) "Poignant, poetic, urgent, profound: the adjectives multiply in attempting to describe this masterful work of scholarship. Rebecca R. Scott is one of our foremost environmental humanists, and Land of Extraction is a superlative work. With sensitivity and nuance she examines the complicated entanglement of fracking, settler colonialism, indigeneity, historical trauma, memory, waste, sacrifice, and ownership of the land in West Virginia. The lessons about property and its limiting force revealed here will be of interest to anyone wishing for more just ways to to imagine environmental futures in a time of unending and self-inflicted crises." (Jeffrey J Cohen, author of Noah's Arkive) "Scott explores fracking's dual impact on settler colonial culture and sustainability...a thought-provoking analysis of how settler colonial culture imposes limits on environmental politics." (Green Left) "Scott has established herself as one of the most potent commentators on Appalachia and its ecological devastation in pursuit of developmentalism. Land of Extraction, her monumental work of theory building and methodological innovation, further attests to it ... Scott draws on eclectic research approaches that range from ecocriticism, ethnography, and autoethnography to open-ended interviews" (CHOICE)