SSSP Section on Environment & Technology Fall 2023 Newsletter This issue’s featured content: Message from the Chair — 1 2023 Brent K. Marshall Winner - 3 2024 Brent K. Marshall Award - 4 Annual Meeting E&T Sessions - 5 New Research - 9 Announcements and Reminders - 10 Message from the Chair Lauren Eastwood University of Duisburg Essen, Germany Dear E&T Community, As we near the end of 2023, I find more and more evidence pointing to the importance of social-justice-informed scholarship and activism. I was reminded of how great a space SSSP creates as I engaged in sessions and meetings last August in Philadelphia.   This is an important space not only for advocating for social change, but also for providing support to others who are likewise experiencing anxiety or grief about the state of the world. In light of this, I am hoping that E&T members will find the slate of sessions that the division has proposed for 2024 to be exciting and relevant. In putting together the sessions, we particularly focused on collaborations between divisions. You will note that several of the sessions pertain to the intersections between multiple divisions’ areas of focus, and many of the sessions take up the conference theme “Toward a Sociology of Violence.” I want to thank everyone who stepped forward to propose and/or organize a session for 2024. This work is ongoing, so thank you also to all of you who have volunteered to serve on the paper committee or to serve as a presider or discussant for the Montreal meeting. If, however, these are things you have never done, please consider reaching out to me. Not only are these roles crucial to an effectively- functioning conference, but they are a great way of getting to know the division and fellow SSSP members better. I do hope that E&T members submit abstracts to the sessions—if there isn’t one that we’ve organized that fits what you do, or if you’ve seen a consistent gap in the programming, then this is all the more reason to get involved in program development for 2025. Lastly, encourage your students to submit their work to the graduate student paper award. In talking with students at the SSSP meetings in Philadelphia, it seems that often they feel that this is an intimidating process. A suggestion from a faculty member that they submit to the paper award would go a long way toward letting them know that their work is good enough for consideration! Best, Lauren Eastwood 2023 Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award Winner The 2023 Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award winner is Allison Ramirez Madia (University of California, Los Angeles) for her paper: “Drought and Settler Colonialism in the Tohono During the Mid-Twentieth Century.” From the award committee: "Her paper focuses on different interpretations of seasonal changes as they relate to drought by the Tohono O’odham and American settlers in the Tohono (Tohono O’odham territory/Sonoran Desert). Ultimately, she shows how these different interpretations of drought impacted water management methods. Similar to how settler colonialists framed indigenous knowledge elsewhere, Americans in the Sonoran Desert, saw drought as problematic and countered it with economic and political actions to control both water and the Tohono O’odham. She uses the term 'colonial stigmergy' to describe these actions, which she defines as 'the colonial production of cultural ideas about our physical environment that help to reconstruct it and expand colonial domination through interactions with people, places, and cultural materials.' Through colonial stigmergy settler colonists were able to refute indigenous claims and ways of life. She goes on to show how the lived consequences of colonial stigmergy reverberate still today. The committee felt that the paper was extremely well-researched. It advances important work in environmental sociology around indigenous understandings of nature and how settler colonial denial of those understandings created many of the environmental crises we deal with today." 2024 Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award Deadline: January 31, 2024 The Environment and Technology Division is pleased to announce its 2024 Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award. This award honors the late Brent Marshall’s (1965-2008) personal and professional commitment to the Division and encouragement of student engagement in academic scholarship and research. Papers will be considered in the areas of environmental sociology, including, but not limited to political economy of the environment, global environmental issues, social movements and the environment, technology and society, natural disasters and society, and risk perception. The winner of the Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award will receive a plaque, a complimentary SSSP student membership, SSSP conference registration, and a cash award. To be eligible, the paper must meet the following criteria: the paper must have been written in 2023; the paper must be authored by one or more students and not co- authored by faculty or a colleague who is not a student; manuscripts should be limited to fewer than 10,000 words (inclusive of notes, references, and tables) and the paper must not be published or accepted for publication. Students should send their submissions to each member of the award committee: Daina Harvey (dharvey@holycross.edu), Nels Paulson (paulsonne@uwstout.edu) and Allison Ramirez Madia (allramirez@ucla.edu). Please note that students may submit to only one Division for a student paper award. Authors should ensure that they receive a confirmation of receipt for their submission. In order to be considered for the Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award, applicants are required to submit their papers through the annual meeting Call for Papers. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Lauren Eastwood (eastwole@plattsburgh.edu). 2024 SSSP Annual Meeting August 9-11, 2024 Montreal, Canada Environment and Technology Sessions SESSION TITLE: POLICING ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE AND WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE? ORGANIZER: ANGUS NURSE The policing of environmental problems and crimes is often left to environmental regulators rather than mainstream policing agencies. What are the implications for this dynamic? Critics suggest that the regulatory system may be part of the problem and does little to address the true nature of corporate environmental harm. Environmental NGOs and activists do much to draw attention to ongoing environmental problems highlighting the extent to which these are not resolved by existing market based and regulatory systems. This panel invites participants to engage with the question of how environmental problems should be ‘policed’. We invite submissions that adopt a wide interpretation of ‘policing’ and that cover a range of aspects pertaining to this topic. SESSION TITLE: SYSTEMIC VULNERABILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY ORGANIZER: NELS PAULSON In this post-COVID, globalized 21st century space today we are grappling with the ways technology provides a double edge sword. On one hand it brings us together through virtual meetings, gives us tools for writing, research, activism, and efficiencies in our social and work lives. On the other hand, it brings new spaces and systems for exacerbating vulnerabilities and inequities. We see this in environmental problems, neoliberalizing processes, health problems, and policing and beyond, as well as anxieties and misinformation fueled by social media. This session calls for papers that explore and develop platforms for confronting these challenges. SESSION TITLE: ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM: LOCAL TO GLOBAL ORGANIZER: KAT FULLER COSPONSORED WITH CONFLICT, SOCIAL ACTION, AND CHANGE This session seeks paper submissions related to the social research on environmental activism in this current age of dynamics such as local community organizing, globalization, extractivism, and litigation, to name just a few. How are communities coalescing to respond to environmental injustices? How are activists responding to increasing criminalization of protests? Not exclusive to research related to these questions, this session seeks submissions from a wide variety of perspectives that broadly address environmental activism and inform our understanding of the crucial issues pertaining to activism around environmental problems. SESSION TITLE: INSTITUTIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY & THE ENVIRONMENT ORGANIZERS: LAUREN EASTWOOD AND HAISU HUANG COSPONSORED WITH INSTITUTIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY This session seeks papers that are based on either ethnographic or institutional ethnographic approaches to researching environmental problems. While we recognize that IE approaches the gathering of data in ways that is often different than traditional ethnographers, we hope that this session will bring researchers into conversation with each other in order to explore the ways in which we approach the study of environmental problems "on the ground" in specific locations. SESSION TITLE: CRIMINALIZING VULNERABLE POPULATIONS ORGANIZERS: MARKO SALVAGGIO AND MILTONETTE CRAIG COSPONSORED WITH: CRIME AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND POVERTY, CLASS, AND INEQUALITY AND LAW AND SOCIETY This session seeks submissions that address the nexus between criminalization and marginalized people, and/or criminalization as it serves to produce marginality. For example, papers submitted to the session could pertain to the criminalization of unhoused people, the criminalization of reproductive choices, or the intersections between race, criminalization, and the incidence of environmental hazards. These are only a few of the possible angles that could be taken up in this session. We welcome submissions that analyze dynamics pertaining to vulnerability and criminalization in multiple ways. SESSION TITLE: AI AND THE SHIFTING TERRAIN OF WORK AND SOCIAL LIFE ORGANIZER: KAYLA WATERS COSPONSORED WITH EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS AND LABOR STUDIES Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to impact social processes and experiences in myriad ways. This session will discuss various ways AI impacts workers, labor movements, education, and social interactions more broadly. Projects focused on the creation and/or regulation of AI are welcome. SESSION TITLE: VIOLENT ENVIRONMENTS: EMPIRE AND COLONIAL LEGACIES ORGANIZER: ALLISON RAMIREZ MADIA COSPONSORED WITH GLOBAL AND CRITICAL RACE AND ETHNIC STUDIES This session broadly seeks submissions pertaining to the violence of colonization and empire and the use of the environment as an agent of social change. Papers may define “environments” in a variety of ways, extending beyond traditional understandings of “the environment.” Submissions may address either historical or current dynamics associated with empire and/or colonization. We are interested in research from scholars who center on place-based ways of being and anti-colonial resistance to environmental violence. Papers from local and global perspectives are welcome. Topics of interest may include but are not limited to the impact of dispossession, climate change, extraction, and toxicity in the context of empire and/or colonialism. SESSION TITLE: GLOBAL HEALTH, CLIMATE, INEQUALITY AND ENVIRONMENT ORGANIZER: CLARE CANNON COSPONSORED WITH HEALTH, HEALTH POLICY, AND HEALTH SERVICES AND GLOBAL AND POVERTY, CLASS, AND INEQUALITY In this post-COVID, globalized 21st century space today we are grappling with the ways technology provides a double edge sword. On one hand it brings us together through virtual meetings, gives us tools for writing, research, activism, and efficiencies in our social and work lives. On the other hand, it brings new spaces and systems for exacerbating vulnerabilities and inequities. We see this in environmental problems, neoliberalizing processes, health problems, and policing and beyond, as well as anxieties and misinformation fueled by social media. This session calls for papers that explore and develop platforms for confronting these challenges. SESSION TITLE: TEACHING ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIAL PROBLEMS ORGANIZERS: ANGUS NURSE AND MORENA TARTARI COSPONSORED WITH TEACHING SOCIAL PROBLEMS This session, organized as a session for “papers in the round,” seeks submissions which pertain to the teaching of environmental problems. Session organizers are interested in initiating a conversation about the possibility of an edited volume project. They ultimately envision robust conversations pertaining to the many facets of teaching about environmental issues. New Research of Interest Clean Air and Good Jobs: U.S. Labor and the Struggle for Climate Justice Todd E. Vachon The labor–climate movement in the U.S. laid the groundwork for the Green New Deal by building a base within labor for supporting climate protection as a vehicle for good jobs. But as we confront the climate crisis and seek environmental justice, a “jobs vs. environment” discourse often pits workers against climate activists. How can we make a “just transition” moving away from fossil fuels, while also compensating for the human cost when jobs are lost or displaced? In his timely book, Clean Air and Good Jobs, Todd Vachon examines the labor–climate movement and demonstrates what can be envisioned and accomplished when climate justice is on labor’s agenda and works together with other social movements to formulate bold solutions to the climate crisis. Vachon profiles the workers and union leaders who have been waging a slow, but steadily growing revolution within their unions to make labor as a whole an active and progressive champion for both workers and the environment. Clean Air and Good Jobs examines the “movement within the movement” offering useful solutions to the dual crises of climate and inequality. Other new publications: Paulson, N., M. Paulson, M. Maniaci, R. Rutledge, S. Inselman, and S. Zawada. 2023. “Why U.S. Patients Declined Hospital-at-Home during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency: An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study.” Journal of Patient Experience doi:10.1177/23743735231189354 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS: 1. Submit a paper for the 2024 Annual Meeting to be held August 9-11, 2024, at Le Centre Sheraton Montréal Hotel in Montréal, Canada. The deadline to submit is January 31, 2024. 2. Nominate a book for the 2023 C. Wright Mills Award. The nomination deadline is December 15, 2023. 3. Submit a proposal for the Call for Books for the 2024 Annual Meeting – Author Meets Critics Session by December 15, 2023. The Program Committee will select one book to be featured on the program. 4. Apply for the 2024 Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award. The deadline to apply is January 31, 2024. 5. If you have not already done so, don’t forget to renew your membership for the 2024 calendar year. 6. As the year comes to a close, consider gifting a SSSP membership – perfect for friends, students, and colleagues alike – or support us with an online donation. Your donations are tax deductible and help support the SSSP’s vital work. Together, we can make a difference.