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

Abstract

The Stop PennEast fieldwork project focuses on teaching students how to apply social fieldwork methods to studying an opposition natural gas pipeline movement, located in northeastern PA and northwestern NJ. The fieldwork was connected to an engaged learning assignment offered as part of an Environmental Politics class at Rider University from 2014 to 2018. Course fieldwork was designed to connect data collection and analysis efforts with existing literature covered in class on social movements, environmental networks, and information diffusion between network actors. Work connected to the project included conducting field surveys, canvassing, participant-observations of movement meetings, a survey of state legislators in NJ and PA (in collaboration with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental advocacy not for profit), and content analysis of public testimony and social media exchanges. This chapter focuses on having students conduct field surveys of Stop PennEast meeting attendees at five public meetings from November 2014 to January 2015.

Appendix

1.1 PennEast Pipeline Survey

Introduction: “Hello, my name is [insert your name] and I am a student at Rider University. I would like to ask you a few questions regarding your feelings on the proposed PennEast pipeline project, reasons for coming out to today’s meeting and how you have been able to stay connected to the issue. Your opinion is important to use to identify ways to better communicate to the public about this issue and ways to help identify all of the various groups who have been working on the issue. The survey should take no longer than 5–7 min to complete. Your identity will remain confidential and results will only be reported in the aggregate form.”

• 1. Why did you come to today’s meeting?

  • To support the PennEast pipeline

  • To oppose the PennEast pipeline

  • Other: (If “other” could you tell me your reason)

If “oppose” to question 1, then ask the following:

• 1. In defining your primary concerns with the proposed PennEast pipeline route, do you agree or disagree the proposal would:

  • Be bad for the environment (A/D/NS)

  • Cause safety issues (A/D/NS)

  • Increase health problems associated with pollution (A/D/NS)

  • Lower property values (A/D/NS)

  • Loss of property use (A/D/NS)

  • Not being compensated by the company for the use of land in town to build the pipeline route (A/D/NS)

  • Other: (If “other” could you tell me your concern(s))

If “support” to question 1, then ask the following:

• 2. In defining the primary benefits with the proposed PennEast pipeline route, do you agree or disagree the proposal would:

  • Create jobs (A/D/NS)

  • Provide property tax relief (A/D/NS)

  • Lower energy prices (A/D/NS)

  • Boost the local economy (A/D/NS)

  • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions (A/D/NS)

  • Other: (If “other” could you tell me what you think are the benefits(s))

Ask all respondents

• 3. How did you hear about tonight’s meeting? (email/text message/flier/social network/newspaper/phone call/word of mouth)

• 4. Did someone contact you directly about today’s meeting (A/D/NS)? If “Y,” was the individual who contacted you a neighbor, co-worker, family member, friend or someone else?

• 5. Thinking of people who live in your community, how many of them have you talked to you about this issue?

• 6. Who do you normally talk to regarding this issue? Neighbor(s), friend(s), family member(s), co-workers or someone else (MARK all that apply)

• 7. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = lowest to 5 = highest), how informed are you about this issue?

• 8. Person’s birth year.

• 9. Where do you live? (TOWN/TOWNSHIP/MUNICIPALITY)

• 10. Would you like to provide any additional comments?

• 11. Would you like us to email the results of the survey? If so, could you please provide us with an email address to reach you.

1.2 Background Reading Questions to Prep for Conducting Field Survey

Meyer, David. S. 2006. Politics of Protest. New York: Oxford University Press, Chaps 2–4.

Meyer, Chapter 2 Why Protest

• Explain the cycles of protest, how do political opportunities fit into the cycles?

• What is the relationship between activists and institutional authorities in explaining the impact of protest movements?

• How does the concept of Eisinger’s work on the structure of political systems condition levels of opportunities that stem from protest movements?

• What are the reasons to organize? How does the work of Piven and Cloward help explain variation in organization structure, capacity, and outcomes? Why do social movements form? How are organizations maintain within social movements?

• What are the major obstacles to successful vs unsuccessful movements (e.g. ideological v routinization)?

Meyer, Politics of Protest: Chapter 3 : Becoming an Activist

• Why are circumstances and opportunities so important in understanding the motives as to why individuals join social movements?

• What does the author mean that in understanding the diversity of social movements?

• How does Meyer define the concept of being an “Activist?” Is his definition too broad or narrow? What would you add to this concept?

• Why are focusing on individuals “who come and go” one of the most important factors in understanding the dynamics of a social movement?

• Who are movement professionals, entrepreneurs, and anomics? What is their role and why are they important to understanding movements?

• What is the best predictor as to why an individual would engage in a political movement?

• How are social movements mobilized? Who comprises these movements?

• What are the key characteristics for finding people to participate in social movements (e.g. slack time, occupation, networks, etc.)?

• Why is acting collective so important to individual identity within social movements?

• How is a common identity and vocabulary developed among activists, organizers, and loosely affiliated members of social movements? Why are these connections important to understanding the dynamics of the movement?

• What are the challenges for activists who become professionals? How do causes and movements adapt, change, or resist according to one’s ability to make a living organizing?

Meyer, Chapter 4 Individuals, Movements Organizations and Coalitions

• What does Meyer mean when he writes “that the translation of a grievance into collective action isn’t automatic or unproblematic.” How has scholarly literature addressed this process?

• What are the functions of social movements?

• What are the primary motives for maintaining an organization and for promoting its stability?

• What is the “iron law of oligarchy” and why is this important to understanding the organizational dynamics of social movements?

• What does Meyer mean “the form an organization takes has important effects on its prospects for survival, as well as its politics and potential influence?”

• What does Meyer mean when “[b]oth political progress and organizational maintenance required a two-track strategy?”

• Describe the process by which coalition and social movements flourish and end? What are the organizational elements that lead to success and what opportunities are needed in order for this process to work?

Gerlach, Luther. 2001. The structure of social movements: Environmental activism and its opponents. Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy.

• What is the most common form of social movements presented (SPIN)

• How does he define “segmentary” elements to movements?

• Why do groups divide or splinter? “

• What are counter-movements and how do they respond to environmental movements?

• How does the author define the notion of polycentric features to movements?

• How does the Network component fit into the scheme for understanding social movements?

• How do linkages impact networks and movements?

• What are integrating factors for creating networked movements?