Emily Eaton

I am a white settler doing community-based research, teaching and service devoted to addressing the climate and inequality crises at local and national scales. Central to this work is understanding the power and influence of the fossil fuel industries and mapping pathways to climate action that prioritize the needs of marginalized communities and that rectify the unjust colonial relationship that Canada has with Indigenous Peoples. 

I am a co-investigator on a SSHRC Insight grant titled: Décarbonisation, transition écologique et verrou carbone: discours et organisation sociale des mouvements pour la transition et de l’élite anti-transition dans l’est Canadian. This grant examines movements for energy transition and movements opposing energy transition in Québec and Atlantic Canada.

My previous work has included studies of the oil industry’s influence on rural instiutions and culture in oil-producing communities and in public education.

Popular Publications:

Eaton, Emily. (October 26, 2021). How Canada Can Leave 83 per cent of its Oil in the Ground and Build Strong New Economies. The Conversation Canada.

Eaton, Emily and Simon Enoch. (2021). “Make the Energy Sector Great Again”: Extractive Populism in Saskatchewan. In J. Jaffe, P. Elliot and C. Sellers (Eds.), Divided: Populism, Polarization and Power in the New Saskatchewan. Nova Scotia: Fernwood.

Eaton, Emily and Simon Enoch. (2020). Renewable Regina: Putting Equity into Action. Regina: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: 1-13.

Olive, Andrea, Eaton, Emily, Besco, Randy, Olmstead, Nathan and Catherine Moez. (2020). Transition Time? Energy Attitudes in Southern Saskatchewan. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Enoch, Simon and Emily Eaton. (2019). Crude Lessons: Fossil Fuel Industry Influence on Environmental Education in Saskatchewan. Regina: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: 1-21. https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/crude-lessons

Gray-Donald, David and Emily Eaton. (2019). A Just Transition Requires a Planned Economy. But whose Plan? Briarpatch Magazine 48(6): 28-31. https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/a-just-transition-requires-a-planned-economy-but-whose-plan 

Eaton, Emily and David Gray-Donald. (2018). Socializing and Decolonizing Saskatchewan's Oil. Briarpatch Magazine 47(3): 16-21.

Enoch, Simon and Emily Eaton. (2018). A Prairie Patchwork: Reliance on Oil Industry Philanthropy in Saskatchewan Boom Towns. Regina: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 1-21.

Olive, Andrea, Emily Eaton and Randy Besco. (2018). Winds of Change: Saskatchewan’s Attitudes on Energy, Environment and Oil. Regina: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 1-16.

Eaton, Emily. (2017). Climate Politics in the Patch: Engaging Saskatchewan’s Oil Producing Communities on Climate Change Issues. Regina: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 1-21.

Eaton, Emily and Enoch, Simon. (2017). Petro-Partners: Energy and Education in Saskatchewan’s Rural Oil Communities. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor, Vol 23, no. 6: 33-35.

Carter, Angela and Emily Eaton. (2016). Saskatchewan’s ‘Wild West’ Approach to Fracking. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor, September/October: 20-24.

Eaton, Emily. (2015). Clean Coal, Green Oil: How SaskPower is Green-washing Carbon Capture. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor. 22.4: 22-23. And on Rabble.ca http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/behind-numbers/2015/10/clean-coal-green-oil-how-Saskpower-greenwashing-carbon-capture

Eaton, Emily. (2014). Who Will Steward This Land Now? Prairies North, Spring Issue.

Eaton, Emily and Public Pastures Public Interest. (2014). Importance of Federal PFRA Management in Mitigating Oil and Gas Impacts:  Factsheet.  Pasture Posts.  Available at http://pfrapastureposts.wordpress.com/about/

Books:

Zink, Valerie and Emily Eaton. (2016). Fault Lines: Life and Landscape in Saskatchewan's Oil Economy.  Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

Eaton, Emily (2013). Growing Resistance: Canadian Farmers and the Politics of Genetically Modified Wheat. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

Other Academic Publications:

Eaton, Emily. (2021) Approaches to Energy Transitions: Carbon Pricing, Managed Decline and/or Green New Deal? Geography Compass 15(2): e12554. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12554

Eaton, Emily and Simon Enoch. (2021). The Oil Industry is Us: Hegemonic Community Economic Identity in Saskatchewan’s Oil Patch. In Carroll, W. Regime of Obstruction: How Corporate Power Blocks Energy Democracy. Edmonton: University of Athabasca Press.

Olive, Andrea, Besco, Randy and Emily Eaton. (2021). Public Opinion & Energy Politics in Saskatchewan and North Dakota. The Extractive Industries and Society 8(2): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2021.02.010

Eaton, Emily and Nick Day. (2020). Petro-Pedagogy: Fossil Fuel Interests and the Obstruction of Climate Justice in Public Education. Environmental Education Research 26(4): 457-473. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2019.1650164

Fehr, Carla and Emily Eaton. (2019). Stopping Monsanto: Coalition Building Against rBGH and GM Wheat. In Desmarais, A. A. Frontline Farmers: How the National Farmers Union Resists Agribusiness and Creates our New Food Future. Nova Scotia: Fernwood.

Eaton, Emily and Enoch, Simon. (2018). Oil’s Rural Reach: Social License in Saskatchewan’s Oil-Producing Communities. Canadian Journal of Communication 43(1): 53-74.

Eaton, Emily (2017) Oil, Democracy and Political Ecology in Alberta’s Tar Sands. Journal of Canadian Studies 50(3): 756-65.

Eaton, Emily. (2017). How Canadian Farmers Fought and Won the Battle Against GM Wheat. In Guthman, J. and Alkon, A. The New Food Activism: Opposition, Cooperation and Collective Action. Oakland: University of California Press.

Eaton, Emily. (2017). Environmental Valuation. In Richardson, D., Liu, W., and Pratt, G. (eds.) Wiley-AAG International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology. New York: Wiley Press.

Eaton, Emily. (2016). Schmeiser v. Monsanto, 1998-2004. In M. Zardini and L. Bratishenko (Eds.), It’s All Happening So Fast: A Counter-History of the Modern Canadian Environment. Heijningen, The Netherlands: Jap Sam Books. 265-276.

Eaton, Emily and Abby Kinchy. (2016). Quiet Voices in the Fracking Debate: Comparing Rural Landowners’ Experiences and Grievances in Two Extractive Communities. Energy Research and Social Sciences 20: 22-30. Part of a special edition titled “Risk, the social sciences and unconventional hydrocarbons”

Carter, Angela and Emily Eaton. (2016). Subnational Responses to Fracking in Canada: Explaining Saskatchewan’s ‘Wild West’ Regulatory Approach. Review of Policy Research 33(4): 393-419.

Eaton, Emily. (2016). Capturing Carbon for Enhanced Oil Recovery: A Climate Change Strategy? In B. Mitchell and P. Dearden (Eds.), Environmental Change and Challenge: A Canadian Perspective (5th ed.) Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Eaton, Emily. (2015). Let's All Meet in Palestine. Dialectical Anthropology 39.4: 423-432.

Eaton, Emily. (2015). Managing Energy Resources for Environmental and Social Sustainability. In B. Mitchell (Ed.), Resource and Environmental Management in Canada, Addressing Conflict and Uncertainty (5th ed.) Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Eaton, Emily. (2011).  Let the Market Decide? Canadian Farmers Fight the Logic of Market Choice in GM Wheat. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 10(1): 107-131.

Eaton, Emily.  (2011).  On the Farm and in the Field: the Production of Nature Meets the Agrarian Question. Part of a symposium on Neil Smith’s Uneven Development 25 years on. New Political Economy 16(2): 247-251.

Eaton, Emily. (2011). Contesting the Values of GM Wheat on the Canadian Prairies.  New Political Economy 16(4): 501-521.

Eaton, Emily.  (2009). Getting Behind the Grain: The Politics of Genetic Modification in Wheat on the Canadian Prairies. Antipode 41(2): 256-281.

Eaton, Emily.  (2008).  From Feeding the Locals to Selling the Locale:  Adapting Local Sustainable Food Projects in Niagara to Neocommunitarianism and Neoliberalism. Geoforum 39(2): 994-1006.