How can local histories of extraction inform a broader understanding of how fossil fuel extraction has shaped our world? This volume aims to introduce the past, present, and future of gas extraction in the Dutch region of Groningen to an international audience. To achieve this, we have chosen an unconventional approach. The following contributions move beyond the supposed distinction between informed, scholarly analysis on the one hand and personal experiences and stories on the other.
As a parliamentary inquiry into the history of gas extraction in Groningen was taking place in the Netherlands in 2022, members of the research group Environment & Society at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam realized that this inquiry touched upon many of the subjects we engaged with professionally. Looking for a way to facilitate an exchange about gas extraction that could introduce our respective perspectives, we launched a digital newsletter.1 As the newsletter developed into a weekly feature, it sparked a series of conversations with colleagues but also with many others who came across the newsletter because of their personal or professional involvement with the issues we addressed. Several contributions to the newsletter blurred the boundaries of such distinctions and the intersection between different kinds of involvement became a crucial part of our thinking about the past and the future of Groningen gas extraction.
As the parliamentary inquiry drew to a close in early 2023, we realized we wanted to continue and expand the conversation. In planning this edited volume, we thus explicitly intended to bring together a group of authors who would not just speak about Groningen but who would tell its stories based on their own distinct manners of involvement. We encouraged contributors to account for their personal vantage points, noting how these could not just convey the crucial emotions attached to the subject but also provide insights a more rigorously academic method could not. Writing from personal involvement can give a voice to those directly implicated in this history and provide perspectives that usually remain invisible in academic discourse.
The contributions that resulted provide a starting point for thinking in new ways about gas extraction in Groningen and beyond. The volume highlights the different forms of involvement and multiplicity of approaches capable of contributing to its continued exploration. Crucially, these exchanges do not disentangle experience from critical analysis but emphasize their intertwinement.
October 2024
Amsterdam
The original posts can be found at: https://totopdebodem.substack.com/.