ABSTRACT
In 2014, Merriam-Webster added the word fracking to its dictionary. The definition chosen was “the injection of fluid into shale beds at high pressure in order to free up petroleum resources (such as oil or natural gas).” Notably, fracking was one of the few new words attached to the relatively old technology of oil and gas extraction. Other entries signified the rapid cultural and material innovation surrounding much newer technologies, especially ICTs—for example, “selfie,” “hashtag,” “facebookian,” “crowdfunding,” and “big data.” The presence of fracking among this crowd is a reminder that our increasingly dematerialized and ethereal world is still tethered to the earth and dependent on our extractive relationship with it.
