Elemental trauma: A case study of living with contaminated water near sites of Marcellus Shale gas

119 Pages·2017·0.48 MB·English

Duquesne University
Duquesne Scholarship Collection
Electronic Teses and Dissertations
Summer 1-1-2017
Elemental trauma: A case study of living with
contaminated water near sites of Marcellus Shale
gas extraction
Christopher John McCann
Follow this and additional works at: htps://dsc.duq.edu/etd
Recommended Citation
McCann, C. J. (2017). Elemental trauma: A case study of living with contaminated water near sites of Marcellus Shale gas extraction
(Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from htps://dsc.duq.edu/etd/178
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ELEMENTAL TRAUMA:
A CASE STUDY OF LIVING WITH CONTAMINATED WATER NEAR SITES OF
MARCELLUS SHALE GAS EXTRACTION

A Dissertation
Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Duquesne University

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

By
Christopher J. McCann

August 2017
Copyright by
Christopher J. McCann

2017
ELEMENTAL TRAUMA:

A CASE STUDY OF LIVING WITH CONTAMINATED WATER NEAR SITES OF

MARCELLUS SHALE GAS EXTRACTION

By

Christopher J. McCann

Approved May 15th, 2017

________________________________ ________________________________
Eva Simms, Ph.D. Suzanne Barnard, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology Associate Professor of Psychology
(Committee Chair) (Committee Member)

________________________________
Jessie Goicoechea, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology
(Committee Member)

________________________________ ________________________________
James Swindal, Ph.D. Leswin Laubscher, Ph.D
Dean, McAnulty Graduate School Chair, Psychology Department
Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Psychology

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ABSTRACT

ELEMENTAL TRAUMA:
A CASE STUDY OF LIVING WITH CONTAMINATED WATER NEAR SITES OF
MARCELLUS SHALE GAS EXTRACTION

By
Christopher J. McCann
August 2017

Dissertation supervised by Eva Simms, Ph.D.
This qualitative research study examines the experiences of individuals living
with contaminated water near sites of unconventional Marcellus Shale extraction
(commonly called “fracking”) in western Pennsylvania. Five individuals across three
households were recruited following IRB approval. Fieldwork was completed in a small
town in western Pennsylvania from July of 2013 to April of 2014. This project examines
how participant’s relationship to the materiality of water undergoes a drastic
transformation. Water is explored as a dynamic, elemental substance that creates the
conditions for both life and disease and death for participant-households. Water becomes
a re-animated character in participant lives that restructures their attention towards
valuing and conserving water as it becomes finite and irreversibly contaminated. Forms
of embodiment are then explored, as they are forced into highly precarious and hazardous
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conditions. Participant-households describe ways that boundaries between their own
bodies and their eco-contexts dissolve. The location of water contamination becomes the
body and the blood. The emotional impact of water contamination on the participants and
their social network are described as they relate to the social and ecological violence of
the fracking process, such as community conflict, social strife, and personal and
collective grief. Finally, the role of technology as it mediates survivability of the
participants is examined. Industrial technology, in relation to the expansion of fracking in
participant-household lives, can neither be characterized as good or bad, but must be
instrumentally deployed in order to attempt to reduce the ecologically catastrophic
aspects of energy production. Additionally, technology will be explored in relation to the
human body as it clashes with obstacles to transparent medical care due to legislation.
Demand for energy to power the planet and support immense population growth is in
overdrive. Energy production and consumption is the central pursuit of the current epoch.
This has come with immense cost. Energy production has created the worst
environmental disasters currently known on the planet. Of the various causalities of these
events, elemental substances are continually damaged. The concept of elemental trauma
is defined as a way of thinking catastrophic change due to large-scale industrial processes
of energy production.
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DEDICATION

To the memory of my mother and father

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would first like to express my gratitude to the residents of Travesty, PA, and the
participants of this study, without whom this dissertation would not exist. It has been an
honor to become acquainted with their lives, families, homes, and struggles. Each
participant offered themselves to this project with trust and courage amidst risky and
unstable conditions.
I would also like to thank my dissertation chair, Dr. Eva Simms, and my two
dissertation readers, Dr. Suzanne Barnard and Dr. Jessie Goicoechea. Dr. Simms
provided enthusiasm for this project from the very start, and her encouragement greatly
assisted me in developing my fieldwork into a proposal, and that proposal into this
dissertation. Dr. Barnard and Dr. Goicoechea provided valuable editorial suggestions as
well as thought-provoking questions. I could not have asked for a more supportive
dissertation committee.
Thank you to Dr. Hector Adames, Dr. Drake Spaeth, and Dr. Sandra Siegel of
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Together they provided the mentorship
and launching point for my wish to pursue graduate studies at Duquesne University.
Thank you to departmental colleagues and alumni Dr. Teal Fitzpatrick and Dr.
Jonathan Yahalhom for laughter, mischief-making, and professional guidance.
I also want to express gratitude to my son Mose Timothy McCann, two years old
at the time of writing this. He has helped me learn and re-learn the eight fingers of play:
this moment, togetherness, pretend, patience, waiting, making, stillness, and sleep. This
helped me approach this project with a tone of lightness, experimentation, and respect.
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Thank you to Benjamin Grand, longtime brother and book lover, for all the
conversations, musings on food, and the practice of the wild.
Lastly, thank you to Sadie Leon Grossman, endless source of aliveness and love,
for at once bringing me home and setting a shining path to come. Her support during the
critical final phases of this project has been spiritually nourishing and helped ground me
firmly in the heart of things.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction / 1

Catastrophe / 8

Trauma / 18

Question / 28

Methodology / 29

Results I: Materiality / 38

Results II: Embodiment / 50

Results III: Affect / 61

Results IV: Technology / 75

Discussion / 80

Conclusion / 91

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