Pipeline Pedagogy: Teaching About Energy and Environmental Justice Contestations

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. Introduction to Pipeline Pedagogy: Teaching About Energy and Environmental Justice Contestations

   • Valerie Banschbach, Jessica L. Rich

   Pages 1-9

3. Teaching and Learning Across Disciplines

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

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   2. The Pipeline Case: Cross-Disciplinary Learning and Pedagogical Lessons from the Mountain Valley Pipeline

      • Andreea Mihalache-O’Keef, Katherine O’Neill, Robert S. Emmett, Marwood Larson-Harris, Valerie Banschbach

      Pages 13-32

   3. Learning to Undermine a Pipeline: A Multi-logue on Encounters with Vermont’s Addison Natural Gas Project

      • Julie Macuga, Ingrid L. Nelson, Rachel Smolker, Trish O’Kane, Brian Tokar

      Pages 33-53

   4. We Are Teachers and Learners Together: Cross-Disciplinary Lessons from the Pilgrim Pipelines Dispute

      • Lisa Jordan

      Pages 55-71

4. Tools and Methods for Teaching Pipeline Controversies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73

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   2. The Stop PennEast Pipeline Fieldwork Project: Teaching Students to Apply Fieldwork Methods to Studying a Natural Gas Pipeline Opposition Movement

      • Michael J. Brogan

      Pages 75-89

   3. Extractive Messaging: A Critical Communicative Approach to Pipeline Pedagogy

      • Jessica L. Rich

      Pages 91-103

5. Mobilizing Pipeline Politics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 105-105

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   2. Mountain Valley Pipeline: A Case Study in Local Resistance and Mobilization

      • Diana Christopulos

      Pages 107-139

   3. Linking Sovereignty, Local Environments, and Climate Justice Through Pipeline Pedagogy

      • Theodor Gordon, Corrie Grosse, Brigid Mark

      Pages 141-155

6. Back Matter

   Pages 157-160

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The proliferation of pipelines to transport oil and natural gas represents a major area of contestation in the landscape of energy development. Battles over energy pipelines pit private landowners, local community representatives, and environmentalists against energy corporations and industry supporters, sometimes drawing opposition and attention from well beyond the impacted regions, as in the case of the Standing Rock/Dakota Access Pipeline.  Stakeholders must navigate complex government regulatory processes, interpret technical and scientific reports, and endure lengthy and expensive court battles. As with other forms of environmental injustice, the contentious construction of pipelines often disproportionately impacts communities of lower economic development, people of color, and indigenous peoples; pipelines also pose potential short and long-term health and safety threats. With the expansion of energy pipelines carrying fracked oil and gas across the United States and abroad, the moment is ripe for teaching about pipeline projects and engaging students and community members in learning about methods for mobilization. Our volume examines pedagogical opportunities, challenges, and interventions that campus-community engagement, and other kinds of community engagement, produce in relation to infrastructuring in the form of pipeline development.

• Pedagogy
• Environmental Justice
• Fossil Fuel Pipeline
• Energy Issues
• Environmental Contestations

• Office of the Provost, Gustavus Adolphus College, Saint Peter, USA

  Valerie Banschbach

• Independent Scholar, Boulder, USA

  Jessica L. Rich

​Valerie S. Banschbach, Ph. D., is an Associate Provost and the Dean of Sciences and Education, at Gustavus Adolphus College, in St. Peter, Minnesota.  She has conducted research focused on social insect behavior and conservation ecology, as well as developed innovative pedagogy and curriculum in Environmental Studies.  She has taught and conducted fieldwork with students in Costa Rica, India, Kenya, Mexico, Panama, and Uganda, as well as Vermont and Virginia, in the U.S.  She co-edited the volume Animals in Environmental Education:  Interdisciplinary Approaches to Curriculum and Pedagogy (in 2019, Palgrave MacMillan) and has published numerous scientific journal articles.  She is the President of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences.  Valerie earned an Outstanding Faculty Award for the State of Virginia from the State Council for Higher Education, while she was a Professor and Chair of the Environmental Studies Program at RoanokeCollege is Salem, VA.  She was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar grant for teaching and research in Uttarakhand India.  

Jessica Rich (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is an organizational and environmental communication scholar and practitioner researching labor, identity, and nature-society interactions in the context of energy and natural resource development. Her publications can be found in the journals, Environmental Communication, Ephemera, and Sustainability. She has served as joint faculty in Communication and Environmental Studies at Merrimack College, developing and teaching courses such as environmental communication, environmental justice, conflict management, and non-profit communication and held the position of postdoctoral research associate with the Cooperative Institute for Environmental Science and the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

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