Alison E. Adams
Associate Professor, Community and Environmental Sociology
Alison Adams' research and teaching efforts reflect her interests in the environment and natural resources, community and civic organizing, and environmental social movements. She has examined these issues through research on various aspects of environmental conflicts, environmental and natural resource decision-making in rural communities, and community engagement in the context of environmental problems.
Alison uses social science concepts to examine environmental and social change, particularly as they relate to issues of environmental risks, threats, and hazards, and human health and illness. The research questions that drive this work ask how communities and organizations can engage surrounding environmental conflicts and how citizens democratically participate in environmental decision-making.
Her work has been published in a variety of social science and interdisciplinary outlets, including Society & Natural Resources, Mobilization, The Sociological Quarterly, Social Forces, and Agriculture & Human Values. Her current research examines dynamics between communities and extractive industries and community conflict over contamination and siting decisions.
Courses Taught
| Identifier | Course Name |
|---|---|
| EVS 4932/FOR 4934 | Eco-Civic Engagement |
| FOR 2662 | Forests for the Future |
| ALS 5932/FOR 6934 | Environment & Society |
| FNR 6061 | Conflict and Collaboration in Natural Resources |
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Research Interests
- Environmental Sociology
- Community and Civic Organizing
- Environmental Health
- Environmental Conflicts
- Qualitative Research Methods
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Education
- BA, Communication, Ursinus College
- MS, Agricultural Extension, University of Florida
- PhD, Sociology, University of Florida
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Publications
- Longest,Landen, Alison E. Adams, Thomas E. Shriver, Laura Bray, and Brittany V. Gaustad Shantz. 2025. “Framing Environmental Risk Around Chemical Weapons Disposal: The Case of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Demilitarization Program.” Society & Natural Resources. 38(2): 132-149.
- Adams, Alison E. and Thomas E. Shriver. 2024. “The Impacts of Landscape Loss on Industrial Communities: Solastalgia in Coal Regions.” Social Currents. 11(5): 422–436.
- Adams, Alison E., Anne Saville, and Thomas E. Shriver. 2024. “Folk Art, Storytelling, and Space: Collective Memory and Pesticide Exposure.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. 7(3): 1299–1317.
- Giangreco, Melanie, Megan Ennes, Sadie Mills, Rebecca Burton, Mariela Pajuelo, Michelle LeFebvre, and Alison E. Adams. 2024. “Assessing an Assets-based Environmental Fellowship through a Community Cultural Wealth Lens.” Environmental Education Research. 30(8): 1348-1367.
- Szabo, Adriana, Thomas E. Shriver, and Alison E. Adams. 2023. “Discursive Strategies and Activist Framing in Anti-Mining Campaigns.” Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 28(8): 995-1007.
- Longest, Landen, Thomas E. Shriver, and Alison E. Adams. 2022. “Cultivating Quiescence in Risk Communities: Coal Ash and Cancer in Two North Carolina Cities.” Environmental Politics 31(7): 1182-1202.
- Shriver, Thomas E., Alison E. Adams, and Landen Longest. 2022. “‘Cursed by Coal:’ Climate Change and the Battle over Mining Limits in the Czech Republic.” Society & Natural Resources, 35(2): 111-128.
- Raskin, Karissa N., Paul F. Monaghan, John Diaz, Alison E. Adams, and Jelena Brezjanović 2021. “Seeds, Soil, and Social Connections: Growing Community in Community Gardens.” SN Social Sciences, 1(244).
- Brown, Hannah O., Susan K. Jacobson, and Alison E. Adams.2021. “Mapping Success for a Declining Resource: Mental Models of Oyster Management in Apalachicola, Florida.” Environmental Management, 68: 377–392.
- Daeli, Willy, Rachel Carmenta, Martha Monroe, and Alison E. Adams 2021. “Where Policy and Culture Collide: Perceptions and Responses of Swidden Farmers to the Burn-Ban in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.” Human Ecology, 49: 159–170.
- Maynard, Lily, Alison E. Adams, Susan K. Jacobson, and Martha Monroe. 2021. “Evaluating Organizational Identity of Zoos to Enhance Conservation.” Curator: The Museum Journal, 64(3): 549-565.
- Shriver, Thomas E., Stefano Longo, and Alison E. Adams. 2020. “Energy and the Environment: The Treadmill of Production and Sacrifice Zones in Czechoslovakia.” The Sociology of Development, 6(4): 493-513.
- Shriver, Thomas E., Jared Whittington, Chris M. Messer, and Alison E. Adams. 2020. “Industrial Pollution and Acquiescence: Living with Chronic Remediation.” Environmental Politics, 7: 1219-1238.