Journal article
‘All dressed up with nowhere to go’: Navigating the coal seam gas boom in the Western Downs region of Queensland
The Extractive Industries and Society, Vol.6(4), pp.1350-1361
11/2019
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Abstract
•A social license over time is dynamic, and changes in different ways for different stakeholder groups.•Perceptions of an industrial development evolve in relation to relative impacts and benefits of, plus trust in, a project/industry over time.•The balance of social and economic impacts vs benefits has an important influence on legitimacy, while trust levels influence credibility.•Business representatives who were initially extremely supportive of the industry became most disillusioned in the post-construction phase.•Industry or government actions influencing trust levels and perceived procedural justice, are critical to changes in social license to operate. Communities living in South-East Queensland have the longest experience of social and economic impacts and benefits from unconventional gas development in Australia. While the ‘rush’ to develop coal seam gas (CSG) in the Western Downs has already been characterised by others using the ‘boomtown’ moniker, there is little research that tracks, over the resource development cycle, community experiences of the impacts and benefits of a resource boom of this kind, and whether this translates into shifts in social license for the industry in question, over time. This article responds to this lacuna by using a longitudinal ethnographic approach to respond to the question, how does a social license – connected to community experiences of (positive and negative) socio-economic and environmental impacts of a resource boom – change over time? Through engaging with farmers and people living in townships in the Western Downs before, during and after the height of the CSG industry’s construction phase, this paper identifies substantial changes in the social license to operate for the CSG industry in relation to the different stakeholder groups involved. These findings indicate that perceptions of industrial development are not static and morph, principally in relation to the relative impacts and benefits (perceived industry legitimacy) and trust levels (influencing perceived credibility) of industry and government.
Details
- Title
- ‘All dressed up with nowhere to go’: Navigating the coal seam gas boom in the Western Downs region of Queensland
- Creators
- Hanabeth Luke - Southern Cross UniversityNia Emmanouil - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- The Extractive Industries and Society, Vol.6(4), pp.1350-1361
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd
- Identifiers
- 991012863197502368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering; School of Environment, Science and Engineering; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article