Publications

Books

Ashwood, L., A. Imlay*, L. Kuehn, A. Franco,  and D. Diamond. 2023. Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-by-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm. The University of North Carolina Press.

• • Covered by NPR via Harvest Public Media, Here & Now, and Science Friday in 2023.
  • Author meets critics panel, Rural Sociological Society (August 2023).
  • Findings included in Investigate TV’s December 19, 2023 nationally syndicated broadcast: “Secret Acres: Boom or Bubble? High Farmland prices encourage investors, concern farmers.”
  • Featured on Barn Raiser.
  • Podcast on the New Books Network.
  • Review published in Library Journal.

Bell, M., L. Ashwood, I. Leslie*, L. Hanson Schlachter*. 2021. An Invitation to Environmental Sociology. 6^th Edition. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press.

Ashwood, L. 2018. For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government is Losing the Trust of Rural America. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

• • Fred Buttel 2020 Outstanding Scholarly Achievement Award.

  • Starred review, Publishers Weekly (June 2018).

  • Reviewed by Front Porch Republic (March 2019).

  • Coverage on C-Span (October 2018), Against the Grain (April 2019).

  • Author meets critics panel, Rural Sociological Society (August 2019).

  • Review published in The Journal of Southern History (August 2019).

  • Review published in Social Anthropology (August 2019).

  • Review published in American Journal of Sociology (October 2019).

  • Two reviews (one comparative and one singular) published in Rural Sociology (December 2019).

Bell, M. M. and L. Ashwood. 2016. An Invitation to Environmental Sociology. 5th Edition. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press.

Special Issue Editor/Introduction

2016. Journal of Rural Studies, Special Issue “Rural as a Dimension of Environmental Injustice.” Volume 47 A. Co-editor with Kate MacTavish.  

 Ashwood, L. and Kate MacTavish. 2016. “Tyranny of the Majority and Rural Environmental Injustice.” Journal of Rural Studies 47(A): 271-277.

Journal Articles

Ashwood, L., Vick, KC*, C. Hiett, M. Lee and N. Damova. 2023. “Rural and Community-Based Cancer Cluster Research.” Environmental Justice.

• • University Kentucky press release on “Rural and Community-Based Cancer Cluster Research” covered by CBS 42, Birmingham; the Daily Mail; and Rick and Bubba.

 Ashwood, L., A. Pilny, J. Canfield*, M. Jamila, and R. Thomson. 2022. “From Big Ag to Big Finance: A Market Network Approach to Power in Agriculture.” Agriculture and Human Values 39(4): 1421-1434.

• • Covered by Ambrook Research in February 2023.

Ashwood, L., J. Canfield*(co-first author), M. Fairbairn, K. De Master. 2022. “What owns the land: the corporate organization of farmland investment.” Journal of Peasant Studies 49(2): 233-262.

• • Lead Article.
  • Covered by Investigate Midwest. Also broadcasted across the country through local TV station affiliates of InvestigateTV in 2022.

 Ashwood, L. 2021. “‘No matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican or neither’: pragmatic politics in opposition to industrial animal production.” Journal of Rural Studies 82: 586-594.

• • Covered and hyperlinked to by The Los Angeles Times in 2022.

Fairbairn, M. J. LaChance*, K. De Master, and L. Ashwood. 2021. “In vino veritas, in aqua lucrum: Farmland investment, environmental uncertainty, and groundwater access in California’s Cuyama Valley.” Agriculture and Human Values 38: 285-299.

Ashwood, L., D. Diamond, and F. Walker*. 2019. “Property Rights and Rural Justice: A Study of U.S. Right-to-Farm Laws.” Journal of Rural Studies 67: 120-129.

• • PlumX Metrics: Top Social Media Article.
  • Opinion-Editorial, Environmental Health Network, “Right-to-Farm laws run counter to rural culture and property rights.”
  • Coverage in Huffington Post, Pacific Standard Magazine, Pew Charitable Trusts, and others.

 Ashwood, L. 2018. “Rural Conservatism or Anarchism? The Pro-State, Stateless and Anti-State Positions.” Rural Sociology 83(4): 717-748.

• • Lead Article.
  • Top 20 downloaded articles, 2017-2018

Ashwood, L. and M.M. Bell. 2017. “Affect and Taste: Bourdieu, Traditional Music, and the Performance of Possibilities.” Sociologia Ruralis 57(S1): 622-640.

Ashwood, L. and Steve Wing. 2016. “Exposure and Compensation for Nuclear Weapons Workers.” New Solutions 26(1): 55-71.

Ashwood, L., N. Harden, M. M. Bell, and W. Bland. 2014. “Linked and Situated: Grounded Knowledge.” Rural Sociology 79(4): 427-452.

• • Rural Sociology 2015 Best Paper Award.
  • Lead Article.

Ashwood, L., D. Diamond, and K. Thu. 2014. “Where’s the Farmer? Limiting Liability in Midwest Industrial Hog Production.” Rural Sociology 79(1): 2-27.

• • Lead Article.
  • Covered by The Daily Yonder and the Open Markets Institute’s Food & Power.
  • In 2022, covered by Civil Eats, in one article on worker conditions in industrial animal facilities and another on federal OSHA protections.

Harden, N., L. Ashwood, M. M. Bell, and W. Bland. 2013. “For the Public Good: Weaving a Multifunctional Landscape in the Cornbelt.” Agriculture and Human Values 30(4): 525-537.

• • Early Version Winner of 2009 Agriculture, Human Values, and Society Graduate Student Paper Competition.
  • Early Version Winner of 2009 International Symposium on Society and Natural Resources Doctoral Student Paper Competition.

Law Review Article

Diamond, D., L. Ashwood, A. Franco, A. Imlay*, L.Kuehn, and C. Boutwell. 2022. “Farm Fiction: Agricultural Exceptionalism, Environmental Injustice and U.S. Right-to-Farm Laws.” Environmental Law Reporter, 52: 10727-10748.

• • Winner of 2023 Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review Award, top twenty article.

• • Covered and hyperlinked to by Harvest Public Media in 2023.

Book Chapters

Robinson, Margaux* and L. Ashwood. 2024. “Financialization.” Pp. 290-297 in the Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Sociology.” Edited by Christine Overdevest. Elgar Publishing: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Imlay, Aimee* and L. Ashwood. “Social and Community Impacts.” Eds. James Merchant and Robert Martin. Public Health Impacts of Industrial Farm Animal Production. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Vick, K.C.* and L. Ashwood. Forthcoming. “Towards a Social-Ecology of Rural Public Health.” Edited by Kenneth Robinson, Mark Harvey, Angie Carter and Keiko Tanaka. Race & Racism in Rural America. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Canfield, J.*, K. Galloway*, and L. Ashwood. 2020. “Rural Estrangement: Roadblocks and Roundabouts to Justice.” Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology.

Ashwood, L., K. MacTavish, and D. Richardson*. 2019. “Legal Enforcement of Spatial and Environmental Injustice: Rural Targeting and Exploitation.” Routledge Companion to Rural Planning. Eds. M. Scott, N. Gallent, and M. Gkartzios.

Ashwood, L. and M.M. Bell. 2016. “The Rural-Agriculture Power Play.” Pp. 650-660 in Routledge International Handbook of Rural Studies, edited by D. Brown and M. Shucksmith. UK: Francis and Taylor.

Ashwood, L. 2010. “Without Categories and Classifications: ‘Rural’ as a Social Expression.” Pp. 113-126 in From Community to Consumption: New and Classical Themes in Rural Sociological Research. Rural Sociology and Development Series, edited by A. Bonanno, H. Bakker, R. Jussaume, Y. Kawamura and M. Shucksmith. Bingley. UK: Emerald Publishing.
* Winner of 2009 European Society for Rural Sociology Fred Buttel Award: Best graduate student paper.

Book Review

Ashwood, L. 2012. “Daniel Imhoff: The CAFO Reader: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories.” Agriculture and Human Values 29: 427-428.

Policy, Feature, or Community Report

Ashwood, L. and P. Howard. 2023. “Sorting out the Ownership Question: The Ultimately Unclear Beneficiaries of Power in Industrial Agriculture.” February 21. Institutional Landscapes.

Diamond, D. and L. Ashwood. 2022. “Defenders of Rural Illinois’ Communities and Environment.” In: Ramos et al. (eds.), Policy Matters. Special Issue on Environmental Defenders. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. 22(1): 114-116.

One Rural Collective. 2021. University of Kentucky. Fifty State Specific Summaries of Right-to-Farm Laws. Story featuring project here.

Video. 2021. Community-Based Survey Research in Rural Alabama Shows Elevated Cancer Rates. January.

Ashwood, L., N. Harden, M. Bell, and W. Bland. 2011. The Green Action Plan: Real Problems, Real Solutions. Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs and UW-Madison.

*Denotes graduate student co-author

You can also read my Curriculum Vitae to learn more about my work.