SSSP DIVISION OF ENVIRONMENT & TECHNOLOGY Spring 2017 Newsletter Message from the Chair 1 Recent Publications 3 SSSP Annual Meeting 4 E&T Annual Meeting Sessions 5 General Election 6 Co-Editors’ Notes 6 Message from the Chair Dear E&T section members, Thanks to all who are participating in the SPSS 2017 annual meeting by presenting research, organizing panels, and moderating sessions. Your contributions are indispensable to our success. The 2017 meeting theme, “Narratives in the World of Social Problems: Power, Resistance, Transformation,” is a powerful framework for interrogating social and environmental problems. We have organized a full slate of exciting panels, dialogues, and thematic sessions for the meetings in Montreal. Please see pages X-X of the newsletter for more information. With regards to the annual meeting, here are a few friendly reminders: Register for the 2017 Annual Meeting. All program participants must register by June 1. Registration is open; pre-registration ends July 15.  In addition to all of the exciting sessions, panel discussions, and events, SPSS is offering optional One-Day Workshops. Preliminary program will be available on May 15. Make your hotel reservation at the Montreal Bonaventure Hotel, cut-off date: July 15. Our single/double room rate of $189 (CAD) includes complimentary internet in your guest room.  Please request the SSSP group room rate when booking a room to ensure the correct discount is given (based on availability).  Our group block code is: CSOCII.  Reservations made after July 15th or after the room block is filled are subject to availability and rate increase.   Sign-up for the 2017 Meeting Mentor Program, deadline June 30. You can use this link to serve as a mentor to be matched with a mentee. The Meeting Mentor Program is designed to facilitate interaction between new members or graduate students and meeting veterans at the Annual Meeting.  Mentors provide valuable knowledge about the SSSP and Annual Meeting activities as well as insight into their own experiences as scholar activists.  SPSS Award Nominations. Please submit self- and peer-nominations for the SPSS awards; deadlines range from April 1-15. Mark your calendars! I would like to encourage each of you to attend the ETS business meeting and division-sponsored reception in Montreal. The business meeting is where planning begins for next year’s meeting, so please bring your ideas and proposals for sessions, panels, and other events you would like to attend in 2018. The division sponsored reception will be held at the Montreal Bonaventure Hotel on Saturday, August 12 from 7:45pm-8:45pm (immediately following the Awards Ceremony). Please enjoy the contents of the newsletter. As always, I am deeply indebted to our magnificent newsletter editors, Clare Cannon and Lisa East, whose tireless inputs made this newsletter possible. Thank you!! I hope you share my enthusiasm for the 2017 annual meeting. I look forward seeing you in Montreal! Take care, Laura Please like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ssspet/ Recent Publications Ciccantell, Paul S. and Paul K. Gellert. Forthcoming 2017. “The Longue Durée and Raw Materialism of Coal: Against the So-called "Death of Coal"”. In Robert Patricio Korzeniewicz (ed.), Commodity Chains and Global Inequality (40th Annual PEWS Conference Volume). Routledge Press. Ipsen, Annabel. "Dimensions of Power in Regulatory Regime Selection: Shopping, Shaping, and Staying.“ The Annals of the American Association of Geographers. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2016.1270190?scroll=top&needAccess=true Congratulations to our members on their recent publications! Have a book or publication announcement? On the market? Have a grant or publishing opportunity? Interested in writing a short contribution for the newsletter? Contact us at etsssp@gmail.com - we’d love to hear from you! 2017 Program Theme: Narratives in the World of Social Problems: 
Power, Resistance, Transformation 67th SSSP Annual Meeting
August 11-13, 2017
Montreal Bonaventure Hotel
Montreal, Quebec Canada Those who tell the stories rule society - Plato Our globalized, cyber-mediated world characterized by extraordinary social, political, economic, and moral fragmentation raises a variety of questions about social problems, including: How do people who experience the consequences of social problems understand the causes of their misery?  How do people not suffering understand the experiences of those who do?  How do activists convince others to work toward social change? The answer to a variety of such questions is the same: Narratives, or what simply are called “stories” in daily life.  Social problem narratives create meaning from the buzzing confusion of practical experience, they convey complex experiences to others, they motivate, they shape public opinion and social action. Whether told as stories about unique people facing specific troubles or about types of people—the abused child, the terrorist, the welfare mother—in types of situations, social problem narratives are pervasive in daily life.  Individuals tell stories to make sense of their troubling experiences, politicians tell stories to sell themselves and their policies; teachers, preachers and parents use stories to convey moral lessons; courts work through the telling and evaluating of stories.  Narratives about social problems are pervasive because they are persuasive.  Unlike statistics or research, stories can appeal to minds and to hearts: The story of the “Migrant Mother” told through the photographs of depression-era photographer, Dorothea Lange, for example, remains to this day a compelling testimony of the human tragedy created by economic collapse. Regardless of the extent to which images in a story match indicators of empirical reality, social problem narratives can be personally, socially, and politically consequential.  These narratives are about power: Those told by people in privileged positions are assumed to be believable and important, while those told by others are routinely challenged, if not completely silenced; stories whose plots, characters, and morals reflect the status quo are more likely to be positively evaluated than those challenging entrenched power and privilege.  Stories become material power when they shape public opinion and social policy.  Yet social actors most certainly are not cultural robots who simply accept whatever images of them circulate in the social world.  On the contrary: Narratives can be a site of resistance as individuals and groups challenge the truth of those offering ideological support for oppression.  Resistance, in turn, can lead to authoring and promoting new stories that foster equality and thus are transformative. In order to understand public reactions toward social problems and, in order to do something about these conditions causing so much human misery, we need to know much more about the work of social problem narratives.  In a world of countless competing stories, we need to know how some—and only some —stories achieve widespread cognitive and emotional appeal and go on to influence public opinion and social policy; how different stories appeal to people in different social positions.  We need to know how stories promoting particular images of social problems reflect and challenge and/or perpetuate existing inequalities and structures of power, and how stories encourage or discourage social change.  We need to more fully understand how story contents and meanings change as they circulate through particular societies and throughout the globe. The power and workings of social problems narratives will be the focus of our conversations at the 2017 meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems to be held in the fascinating, beautiful, bi-lingual, multi-cultural city of Montreal.  I look forward to seeing you there. -Donileen R. Loseke, SSSP President 2016-2017, University of South Florida Environment and Technology Division Sessions SSSP Annual Meeting 2017 Division Sessions: CRITICAL DIALOGUE (THEMATIC): “Applications in Environmental Studies & Narratives on Interdisciplinary Research” Session organizer: Victor Perez, University of Delaware, victorp@udel.edu REGULAR SESSION: “Food and Environment” Session organizer: Carmel E. Price, University of Michigan-Dearborn, carmelp@umich.edu CRITICAL DIALOGUE (THEMATIC): “Resistance Narratives and Scholar Activism” Session organizer: Erin Robinson, Canisius College, robinso5@canisius.edu Co-Sponsored sessions: REGULAR SESSION (THEMATIC): “The Technologies of Telling” co-sponsored with Institutional Ethnography Session organizer: Cheryl Zurowski, cdz@qbeach.ca REGULAR SESSION: “Environmental Health & Environmental Justice” co-sponsored with Conflict, Social Action and Change AND Health Session organizer: Marko Salvaggio, Goucher College, Marko.Salvaggio@goucher.edu REGULAR SESSION: “Geography and Human Capital” co-sponsored with Youth, Aging, and Life Course Session organizer: Rebecca Wang, Syracuse University, rwang09@syr.edu REGULAR SESSION (THEMATIC): “Global Environmental Justice: Stories of Power and Resistance” co-sponsored with Global Session organizer: Ian Carillo, icarillo@wisc.edu REGULAR SESSION (THEMATIC): “Environmental Racism: Power, Resistance, Transformation” co-sponsored with Racial and Ethnic Minorities Session organizer: Daina Harvey, dharvey@holycross.edu REGULAR SESSION: “Community Development and Local Food Systems” co-sponsored with Community Research and Development Session organizer: Leslie Hossfeld, lhossfeld@soc.msstate.edu Call for Nominations for the SSSP 2018 General Election, due June 15 Nominations are open for candidates to run in the SSSP 2018 General Election.  
For more information, visit: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/656/2018_General_Election_Candidate_Nominations/. Notes from the Co-editors Happy Spring! Don’t forget to register for the annual meeting and to attend the business meeting and reception! Hope everyone’s semesters are going well. See you in the Summer! Best, Clare and Lisa, 2016-2017 E&T Newsletter Co-Editors