Welcome

Why is it that rural people bear much of the toxins, hazards, and risks of modern day society? This article introduces a special issue on the topic of rural as a dimension of environmental injustice. With my co-author Kate MacTavish, we argue that the majority orientation of the government, where the most people or the most money rules, leaves rural people especially vulnerable. Please visit the link the learn more, and check out the supporting papers including perspectives from epidemiology, public health, sociology, anthropology, and the law.

Sociologists have taken much liking to Pierre Bourdieu’s foundational work, and the notion that class (often infallibly) structures taste in music. In fact, Bourdieu boldly proclaims that “…nothing more clearly affirms one’s ‘class’, nothing more infallibly classifies, than tastes in music’ (Bourdieu 1984, p. 18).  Michael Bell and I argue that while class most certainly influences musical taste, affections forged through place can cross what often is penned an insurmountable  economic barrier. “All comers” can take, as Tig Coili boldly proclaims in the photo above. We bring our knowledge of traditional music in Galway, Ireland, and Morpeth, England, to make our case. Download the article here.

What happens to workers who do not have access to their own exposure data? Co-author Steve Wing and I completed a study that pertains to the Savannah River Site (SRS), designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a hazardous Superfund Site. The health repercussions for its workers have been quite severe, so severe that the United States Department of Energy provides lump-sum compensation to plant workers who demonstrate exposure. But as we explain in this paper, those exposures are not always officially documented, making it difficult for workers, especially those who worked as temporary contractors, to get compensation now. Download the article here.

Effective, participatory research requires respect for many different types of knowledge, including local and expert. But how can the integration of these sometimes very different ways of thinking be achieved? Co-authors Noelle Harden, Michael M. Bell, William Bland, and I draw on the successes and failures of participatory processes aimed at reducing non-point sources of water pollution, like phosphorus and nitrogen. We find that grounded knowledge offers a key way of enacting and also understanding how people with different ways of knowing can work together. Download the article here.

How does corporate structure influence the way that large-scale hog production works? This article details how Limited Liability Corporations are used to confuse ownership and dodge liability in the context of expanding industrial scale hog production in Illinois. Co-authors Danielle Diamond, Kendall Thu, and I detail the impacts of this structure for rural communities and family farms here.

For coverage of this article, see The Daily Yonder and the Open Markets Institute’s Food & Power.