SSSP Section on Environment and Technology
Winter 2023 Newsletter

This issueÕs featured content:
Message from the Chair Ð 1
2023 Annual Meeting E&T Sessions Ð 3 
New Research Ð 7
Announcements and Reminders Ð 8
Brent K. Marshall Student Paper Award Ð 9

Message from the Chair
Lauren Eastwood
University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Dear E&T Community,

As always, I am hoping that this message finds you all happy and healthy!  I was unable to attend the meeting in L.A., so IÕm finding myself really looking forward to connecting with people again at the next meeting in Philadelphia.  I know that it seems far into the distant future, but lo and beholdÑit is time to submit our abstracts!  To help people think about where their work would fit, weÕre including the list of next yearÕs sessions with descriptions in this newsletter.  

**The deadline for submission is 11:59 (Eastern Time) on January 15, 2023 **

I must admit that the theme of this next conference really resonates with me. Shirley Jackson really captured my (all-too-regular) thoughts when she titled the next conference ÔSame Problem, Different Day:  Recognizing and Responding to Recurring Social ProblemsÕ. For me, the problems that I focus on most consistently involve the climate crisis and social justice.  Here in Germany, where I live and work, 2022 was the hottest year on record (since records began in 1881).  Additionally, while the most recent UN Climate meetings did result in some progress toward funding for Ôloss and damageÕÑthe terminology used to represent the fact that vulnerable, marginalized and economically-disadvantaged countries/peoples will disproportionately experience the negative impacts of a changing climateÑthis progress was miniscule in comparison to the severity of the problems.  This is not unusual or unexpected for the UN negotiations, but it surely is depressing nonetheless. 

So, how do we deal with the fact that the things about which we feel so passionate are, in fact, persisting as social problems? In some (many?) cases, they are not only persisting but becoming more dire and acute. I have to say that one of the things that I appreciate about SSSP is that I find other scholars, activists, and/or practitioners who likewise ask these questions.  And IÕm looking forward to the fact that the next conference is officially organized around conversations about this very topic, as IÕm sure I will gain important burnout-evading insights from my fellow SSSP-members.  

Please take a look through the sessions for next summer and think about where to submit your own work, and submit an abstract now!  This is a critical time for all academic organizations, and I strongly believe that SSSP is one that merits our collective support. 

Best,
Lauren Eastwood 

2023 SSSP Annual Meeting
August 18-20, 2023
Philadelphia, PA
Environment & Technology Sessions

Environmental Litigation in the Age of the Conservative Courts
Organizer:  Angus Nurse
This panel explores the challenges facing environmental litigation and use of the courts to pursue environmental justice.  In the current era of conservative courts, environmental activists may have legitimate concerns that environmental protections may be rolled back and that new challenges may face environmental litigation. As an example of the former, the Supreme CourtÕs 2022 ruling in West Virginia v. EPA has been identified as limiting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas emissions released by power plants that burn fossil fuels. 

This panel welcomes papers on a range of topics relating to environmental litigation in the age of conservative courts.  This includes papers on the challenges and opportunities for environmental litigation; environmental activism through litigation; the role of the courts in environmental protection; conservative courts and environmental litigation and alternative litigation strategies. Case studies on particular policies, contemporary issues and court decisions that represent challenges for environmental protection are also welcomed. 

Author Meets Critic Session:  Cleaning up Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Crime and the Crisis of Capitalism by Angus Nurse
Organizer: Nels Paulson
The Environment and Technology division of SSSP is pleased to offer an Author Meets Critics session reviewing Angus NurseÕs recent book:ÊCleaning up Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Crime and the Crisis of Capitalism. ÊThis book is a continuation of NurseÕs exceptional scholarship on the critical environmental justice issues we must reveal and address, both as academics and engaged citizens.Ê


New systemic approaches to old environmental problems 
Organizer:  Clare Cannon
Format:  Critical Dialogue
Building on this year's theme of "same problem, different day:Ê recognizing and responding to recurring social problems"Êthis critical dialogue seeks to advance the new or repurposed theoretical and/or empirical approaches to persistent environmental problems, such as but not limited to, environmental pollution and injustice, climate change and disasters, among other pernicious environmental problems. We seek to showcase the diversity of approaches and problems being studied to help advance recognizing and responding to recurring socio-environmental inequalities.Ê

Co-Sponsored Sessions:

Invisible Disabilities and the Body in Physical and Virtual Spaces
Co-Sponsored with Sport, Leisure, and the Body AND Disability
Organizer:ÊVirginia Kuulei Berndt
ÊRecent years have seen an increased visibility of disability activism and advocacy, as well as a heightened focus on disability justice. Online spheres have enhanced efforts previously existing solely in physical places, enhancing the accessibility of participation in these movements. There is also more widespread recognition of the various forms of disabilities that exist, including less visible disabilities that span chronic physical illness, mental illness, and neurodivergence. However, challenges ranging from persistent societal ableism to distinct hierarchies within disability communities remain. This session welcomes submissions relating to topics around disabled bodies navigating physical and virtual spaces; disability advocacy and justice within these spaces; relationships between the body and (in)visible disabilities; challenges of societal ableism; and gatekeeping, boundary-work, and marginalization within disability communities.
Ê

Race and the Environment: Critical reflections on Environmental Justice
Co-Sponsored with Racial and Ethnic Minorities AND Teaching Social Problems 
Organizer:  Angus Nurse
This panel examines environmental justice as ÔtheÊfair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policiesÕ.  But the extent to which these principles are implemented in policy and practice is variable and ethnic minority and indigenous peoples continue to experience inequality in respect of access to environmental justice. 

This panel welcomes papers exploring all aspects of environmental justice including the anti-toxics movement and case studies of environmental justice relating to toxic waste or chemicals, access to environmental justice and problems of accessing environmental justice, case studies on environmental (in)justice, environmental racism and racial disparity in environmental policy or its implementation. 

Environmental Activism
Co-Sponsored with Community Research and Development
Organizer:  Lauren Eastwood
This session seeks paper submissions related to the social research on environmental activism in this current age of dynamics such as globalization, extractivism, and litigation.  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.

Institutional Ethnographies of Changing Socio-technical Relations
Co-Sponsored with Institutional Ethnography
Organizer:  Katherine Koralesky
Novel technologies proposed to address societal problems can have an impact on the social organization of institutions including the everyday work people do and coordinate with each other. This session welcomes papers that explore how technologies are entering into, changing, and organizing everyday work, now and in the future.

Biotechnology and E-health Delivery
Co-Sponsored with Health, Health Policy and Health Services
Organizer: Jennifer Bulanda
In an age of biomedicalization, the treatment and enhancement of human bodies is increasingly reliant on technology. The use of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, apps, and other methods has become pervasive, and with COVID-19, e-health delivery has become more accepted as well. This session will examine the role that biotechnology and e-health delivery play in contemporary medical care and consequences for patients, providers, and other stakeholders.

Gender and Environment 
Co-Sponsored with Gender
Organizer: Kelsey Ryan-Simkins
We invite submissions for diverse theoretical and empirical papers that engage the topic of gender and the environment. Possible areas of exploration may include but are by no means limited to:
* Gender inequality and the impact of environmental problems
* Queer gender identities and environmental activism
* Masculinities and the environment
* Reproductive justice as an area of environmental justice
* Ecofeminist sociology
* Gender roles, patriarchy, and gender-based inequality within the environmental movement
We especially encourage papers that offer new perspectives or directions in research on gender and the environment.



Social Dilemmas of Climate Change
Co-Sponsored with Global AND Health, Health Policy, and Health Services
Organizers: Marko Salvaggio and Nikhil Deb
This session calls for theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of climate-related social issues. This session aims to bring together scholarship that questions expert approaches to climate change that define and communicate dangerous climate impacts and inform climate protection strategies, as well as the ways in which various communities experience, cope with, and respond to climate change and climate protection strategies. Session topics may include (but not limited to) climate-related social issues associated with: production and consumption; gender inequality; race, ethnicity, and indigeneity; health; migration; adaptation; and culture, discourse, and controversies.

New Research of Interest:

ÒReimagining the Climate Crisis as a Social CrisisÓ in Global Agenda for Social Justice 2
Marko Salvaggio
Edited by Tobias Schulze-Cleven and Todd E. Vachon

Abstract
On 14 March, 2019, Cyclone IdaiÑone of the worst tropical cyclones ever to hit southern AfricaÑmade landfall near the port city of Beira in central Mozambique, before moving across the southeast African region, affecting millions of people in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Six weeks later, Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in northern Mozambique, making it the first time in recorded history that two strong tropical cyclones hit the country in the same season. The devastation caused by Idai and Kenneth left more than 1,300 people dead, with many more missing, and 2.5 million people in need of basic resources and humanitarian assistance (for healthcare, nutrition, protection, education, water, and sanitation) in Mozambique alone (UNICEF, 2019). Today, over 104,000 people continue to live in resettlement sites and accommodation centers in central Mozambique, and nearly 670,000 people are displaced in the northern part of the country (CARE, 2021). But were these two Ònatural disasters,Ó which are deemed part of the Òclimate crisis,Ó the root cause of this tragedy?
Since 2010, the French energy firm Total has invested US$20 billion in a liquefied natural gas project just off the coast of northern Mozambique, making it one of the biggest investments in Africa. Supported by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as the Mozambican government, this gas project is estimated to produce 65 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas by 2024 and will expand to produce 43 million tonnes per annum.

Other New Publications 

Jablonski, E. S., Surfus, C. R., & Henly, M. (in press). Full-time caregiving during COVID-19 based on minority identifications, generation, and vaccination status. Research in the Sociology of Health Care, volume 40, Social factors, health care inequities, and vaccination. 
Halpin, Michael. 2022. ÒThe Brain and Causality: How the Brain Becomes an Individual-Level Cause of Illness.Ó Social Problems, 69, 510-526. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaa030 
Halpin, Michael. 2022. "Weaponized Subordination: How Incels Discredit Themselves to Degrade Women." Gender & Society DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432221128545 
Halpin, Michael. 2022. ÒCountervailing Medicalization: Treatment and Surveillance on the Boundaries of Medicine.Ó Social Science & Medicine Ð Qualitative Research in Health, 2, 100118. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100118 
Preston, Kayla, Michael Halpin & Finlay Maguire. 2021. "The black pill: New technology and the male supremacy of involuntary celibate man. Men and Masculinities, 24, 823-841. 
Wejnert, Barbara and Cam W. Pepew. (in press). Hazard or survival: Politics of nuclear energy in Ukraine and Belorussia through the lens of energy democracy in Energy Democracies for Sustainable Futures 
Announcements and Reminders

1. If you have not already done so, please renew your membership for the 2023 calendar year.

2. Submit a paper for our 73nd Annual Meeting to be held August 18-20 at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown Hotel in Philadelphia, PA. The deadline for submission is January 15, 2023.

3. Submit to a Special Issue of Laws (ISSN 2075-471X). The Special Issue titled ÒWildlife and Environmental Law and its EnforcementÓ seeks original contributions on the theory of wildlife and environmental law and its interactions with criminal justice and enforcement. This includes issues that impact wild and farmed animals as well as wild animals kept in captivity in zoos, circuses, and other animal attractions. The Special Issue will also examine wider issues on how the law deals with human-centred harms on the environment. The deadline for submission is February 28, 2023. Learn more here: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/laws/special_issues/Wildlife_Environmental and direct questions to Angus Nurse (angus.nurse@ntu.ac.uk).

4. Contribute to an edited book by the Ecologies of Justice editorial collective about environmental justice initiatives in the social and spatial context of incarceration. The deadline to submit is February 10, 2023. Learn more and view the call for contributors here: https://www.ecologiesofjustice.org/book and direct questions to Matt DelSesto (delsesma@bc.edu)

Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award

The Environment and Technology Division is pleased to announce its 2023 Brent K. Marshall Graduate Student Paper Award. This award honors the late Brent MarshallÕs (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: 

1. The paper must have been written in 2022;
2. The paper must be authored by one or more students and not co-authored by 
faculty or a colleague who is not a student;
3. Manuscripts should be limited to fewer than 10,000 words (inclusive of notes, 
references, and tables) and
4. The paper must not be published or accepted for publication. 

Students should send their submissions to each member of the award committee: Lisa- Jo K. van den Scott (kvandenscott@mun.ca), Daina Harvey (dharvey@holycross.edu), and Danielle Falzon (danielle.falzon@gmail.com). 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 here: https://www.sssp1.org/2023_Call_for_Papers. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Lauren Eastwood (eastwole@plattsburgh.edu). The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2023.