Nexus Accumulation and Assemblages at the Bakken Formation

This research project investigates the Bakken Formation -
one of the largest shale formations on the North American
continent - as an example of ongoing processes of coconstitution of water-energy and state-capital. More
specifically, it focuses on the way in which hydraulic fracturing
technologies, by mobilising water to extract shale gas from
the micropores of rock formations, embody the social,
economic, political and ecological contradictions of the
"water-energy nexus". In other words, this project aims to
study fracking technologies as an important example of the
ways in which the flows of water and energy upon which
human life depends are increasingly "co-produced", through
processes that can be simplified as "water for energy and
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energy for water" (Williams, Bouzarovski and Swyngedouw
2014: 12, 6). Moreover, it aims to further investigate -
through an historical and ecological analysis of fracking
technologies - the social production of the water-energy
nexus. As a recent think-piece published by the ESRC-funded
Nexus Network has argued, the nexus should not be
assumed to be a natural given, but rather as continuously
evolving through the "exercise of political and economic
power" (ibidem: 3).