Environment and Technology Business meeting:  MINUTES
SSSP annual meeting 2024


In attendance:

Lauren Eastwood (outgoing Chair) (minutes taken by lauren)
Angus Nurse (incoming Chair)
Jonathan Tollefson
Marko Salvaggio
Haisu Huang
Nels Paulson

1) Introductions:  


2) Student Paper award:  

a. Announcement/recognition of winner:

“Environmental Risk and the Reorganization of Urban Inequality in the Late 19th and Early 20th Century,” Jonathan Tollefson, Brown University, Winner of the Environment and Technology Division’s Student Paper Competition

Thank you to Allison Ramirez Madia, Daina Cheyenne Harvey, and Nels Paulson for serving on the student paper award committee this year!

b. Committee composition for next year:  Jonathan has agreed to serve.  We need at least one other person to evaluate papers.  Angus +1 more?  Angus can reach out to the membership to seek another committee member.  If that is unsuccessful, Lauren or Marko would be willing to do it.


3) Sessions for next year:  

Theme for next year:  Insurgent Sociology in a Time of Crises (75th Annual Meeting)
Dates:  August 8-10, 2025
Location:  Chicago, IL

Note—this meeting was previously scheduled to take place in San Francisco, but has been moved to Chicago.

NUMBER OF SESSIONS: We can have a maximum of 2 [note that this was changed after our business meeting, as the decision was made on Sunday] sole-sponsored (Environment & Technology) sessions, and 5 co-sponsored sessions (with as many other divisions as we want).  [Again, that number was changed after the business meeting].

I suggest that we think about whether there will be good submissions before we propose sessions.  It is fine to NOT use all of our allotted sessions, as the total number of sessions that each division gets has remained the same over the years, while there have been additional divisions added AND significantly fewer members.

While it is sort of an inconvenience to have to cancel sessions, the main issue is that we want to avoid circumstances where people are presenting to an essentially empty room.  First-time SSSP attendees find this very off-putting, and it basically defeats the purpose of sharing our research and getting feedback.  Furthermore, it is expensive for SSSP to book so many rooms, and we’re losing money at annual conferences. 

Sole-Sponsored (E&T):

Environmental activism as a form of insurgency (Thematic)

We’ll stick with one right now, and if we get extra papers we can expand.

Co-Sponsored:

(1) on “ecofascism”.  (and responses to…)
Kat Fuller has proposed a session (and is willing to organize)
Global is willing to co-sponsor.

(2) AI
Critical dialogue:  Invited session would be best—Lauren has located some people doing research in AI…
Organizers:
      Nels Paulson
      Jonathan 


(3) Home /climate and displacement
   Haisu will organize or co-organize
   Possible co-sponsors
   poverty class inequality
   Institutional ethnography (?)

(4) Environmental Injustice/ incarceration/policing and incidence environmental hazard 
   Policing bodies and environmental risk
   Marko Salvaggio and angus Nurse. 
   Possible co-sponsors:
   crime and justice/law and society



(5) Environment and ethnography/IE
Lauren will organize, but we need to confirm with IE that they have room to co-sponsor.  If they don’t, then we could do a session on Global Health, Environment, Inequality (as we did this year)


4) Publication Projects:

Key debates in sociology series:  
Laura McKinney and Angus Nurse (editing) mostly E&T members—under contract with Edward Elgar
4 chapters have come in

Teaching environmental problems:  in collaboration with Rowan and Littlefield SSSP presidential series
Possibly reach out to other E&T members
Understanding environmental problems
Different approaches to teaching—an exercise to do in class etc.  

Maybe a special issue with nature and culture


5) Newsletter:  Emily Burke has agreed to serve again.  Thank you Emily!!

6) Member outreach:

Do we want to think about doing additional workshop?  Focused toward students (?). 
Food justice experience:  


Online for 2025 mentorship—questions from doctoral students, e.g.


7) Elections:  E&T needs to hold elections next year (2025) as Angus’ term ends at the 2026 meeting, and we need someone elected prior to that.  It isn’t currently urgent, but people should be looking for good candidates.  It is helpful to have the person elected so that they can be onboarded over the course of the last year of Angus’ term.


8) Other business?


Nudge people for the newsletter—content 

Work with the divisions at ASA to submit a paper 
Giving platforms