Thomas W. Pearson is Associate Professor of  Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. For the past several years, his research has documented the grassroots response to frac sand mining in western Wisconsin, a largely overlooked dimension of hydraulic fracturing that sparked new conflicts over the environment and the future of local democracy. His book, When the Hills Are Gone: Frac Sand Mining and the Struggle for Community, will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in November 2017.