You are here

Volatile Places
Share

Volatile Places
A Sociology of Communities and Environmental Controversies



November 2006 | 256 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
Volatile Places was written to provide both students and faculty with a case study approach to the investigation of community and environmental controversies. Key Features:Case Studies in every chapter: creates a dramatic and telling story around certain features of the controversy. The case studies are written to capture studentsÆ attention. Making Connections with previous chapters: students and instructors are encouraged to read and discuss how the current discussion links to previous discussions creating a strong sense for the integrated approach to the study of community and environmental controversies. Adding to the Portfolio: a portfolio was created for each chapter that both summarizes material and provides questions that lead students into thoughtful encounters with key concepts. Concept and Theory Boxes: Ideas and theories introduced, but not elaborated on, in the text are given a more thorough and concise treatment in the boxes.
 
Preface
 
Acknowledgments
 
1. When Environments and Communities Collide
 
2. The Presence of the Past
 
3. Trust and Betrayal
 
4. The Problem of Uncertain Knowledge
 
5. Perceptions of Fairness
 
6. Oppositional Activity and Social Capital
 
7. Social Facts and Brute Facts: Confounding the Social and the Physical
 
Postscript
 
References
 
Index
 
About the Authors

It gives an engaging and student-friendly account of environmental justice, which is a main focus of my Environmental Soc course this semester.

Ms Stephanie Malin
Sociology Soc Work Anthro Dept, Utah State University
February 7, 2010

Valerie J. Gunter

At the time Hurricane Katrina struck, Valerie J. Gunter was an associate professor in the department of sociology at the University of New Orleans.  She spent most of the 2005-2006 academic year as a visiting associate professor at Michigan State University, from which she had received her PhD in sociology in 1994.  She has spent over 20 years researching the controversial processed by which environmental issues become registered on community and national political agendas.  Articles reporting the results form this research have been published in such journals as Social Problems, The Sociological Quarterly, The American... More About Author

Steve Kroll-Smith

Professor Kroll-Smith is the Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. He was formerly a research professor of sociology at the University of New Orleans. He has edited and written 5 books on environmental hazards and disasters, health and the environment, and sociologists as expert witnesses. He is the current editor of Sociological  Inquiry and the 2004 recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Contribution Award in the study of Environment and Technology. Kroll-Smith’s current work is the problem of race, class, and water in New Orleans in the aftermath of... More About Author

Purchasing options

Please select a format:

ISBN: 9780761987505
$95.00

SAGE Knowledge is the ultimate social sciences digital library for students, researchers, and faculty. Hosting more than 4,400 titles, it includes an expansive range of SAGE eBook and eReference content, including scholarly monographs, reference works, handbooks, series, professional development titles, and more.

The platform allows researchers to cross-search and seamlessly access a wide breadth of must-have SAGE book and reference content from one source.