Valerie Olson
Biographic Data
| ID | 199692 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Valerie Olson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Valerie |
| FAMILY NAME | Olson |
| SIGNATURE | OLSON V |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Irvine |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8258-3937 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 146 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Climate change and agricultural workers in the Michoacán avocado industry
The rapidly expanding demand for avocado production places significant strain on agricultural communities and associated ecosystems. As temperature increases and water scarcity worsens, the avocado, a high-water demanding crop, faces declining yields and increased tree mortality. Deforestation, monoculture farming, and pesticide use further threaten interconnected landscapes, reducing biodiversity, degrading soil quality, and devaluing natural ca…
State-level regulation of disinfection byproducts in the United States
Disinfection byproducts (DBPs), residual compounds formed from the chemical disinfection of drinking water, can cause a host of damaging public health and environmental impacts. This study evaluates the landscape of regulations designed to reduce the occurrence and/or impact of DBPs, focusing on regulations issued by the US states. Drawing on a systematic search of state administrative codes and agency websites, we first identify the presence, ab…
Into the Extreme
Beyond the Anthropocene
As "the Anthropocene" emerges as a geological term and environmental analytic, this paper examines its emerging rhetorical topology. We show that Anthropocene narratives evince a macroscale division between an "inner" and "outer" environment. This division situates an Anthropocenic environment that matters in the surface zone between Earth's subsurface and the extraterrestrial "outer spaces" that we address here. We review literature in the scien…
Relational Space
Anthropology off the Earth opens to new questions and futures for our disciplinary project and reach, while at the same time compelling revisits to classic sites of anthropological inquiry and critique. Taking as a given that human labor and imagination are neither limitable to, nor severable from, terrestrial-scapes of knowledge and practice, we argue that conceptually and materially working with outer space offers a unique opportunity to engage…
Political Ecology in the Extreme
This case study examines how, in a post-Cold War context, aerospace and astronautics practices and policies are becoming more comprehensively attached to national and international environmental politics. This is evident in the emergence of a dual identity for Near Earth Objects (asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them close to the Earth); they are astronomical as well as environmental objects that are considered to be threats as well as…
Extreme
This paper introduces a special collection of Anthropological Quarterly for examining "the extreme" in contemporary modernity. Drawing upon sites of political, scientific, and economic engagement that source specifically to the extraterrestrial, we argue that the figure of the extreme shapes an analytic of limits and ever-opening horizons-epistemological and physical-provoking new understandings of humanness, environment, temporality, and of inte…
The Ecobiopolitics of Space Biomedicine
Using data from an ethnographic study of American astronautics, I argue that, in an inversion of the usual clinical model, astronaut medical subjecthood is fundamentally environmental rather than biological. In extreme environments like outer space, the concept of environment cannot be bracketed out from life processes; as a result, investments of power and knowledge shift from life itself to the sites of interface among living things, technologi…
Encountering the Future
Into the Extreme
Beyond the Anthropocene
As "the Anthropocene" emerges as a geological term and environmental analytic, this paper examines its emerging rhetorical topology. We show that Anthropocene narratives evince a macroscale division between an "inner" and "outer" environment. This division situates an Anthropocenic environment that matters in the surface zone between Earth's subsurface and the extraterrestrial "outer spaces" that we address here. We review literature in the scien…
Extreme
This paper introduces a special collection of Anthropological Quarterly for examining "the extreme" in contemporary modernity. Drawing upon sites of political, scientific, and economic engagement that source specifically to the extraterrestrial, we argue that the figure of the extreme shapes an analytic of limits and ever-opening horizons-epistemological and physical-provoking new understandings of humanness, environment, temporality, and of inte…
Relational Space
Anthropology off the Earth opens to new questions and futures for our disciplinary project and reach, while at the same time compelling revisits to classic sites of anthropological inquiry and critique. Taking as a given that human labor and imagination are neither limitable to, nor severable from, terrestrial-scapes of knowledge and practice, we argue that conceptually and materially working with outer space offers a unique opportunity to engage…
Political Ecology in the Extreme
This case study examines how, in a post-Cold War context, aerospace and astronautics practices and policies are becoming more comprehensively attached to national and international environmental politics. This is evident in the emergence of a dual identity for Near Earth Objects (asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them close to the Earth); they are astronomical as well as environmental objects that are considered to be threats as well as…
The Ecobiopolitics of Space Biomedicine
Using data from an ethnographic study of American astronautics, I argue that, in an inversion of the usual clinical model, astronaut medical subjecthood is fundamentally environmental rather than biological. In extreme environments like outer space, the concept of environment cannot be bracketed out from life processes; as a result, investments of power and knowledge shift from life itself to the sites of interface among living things, technologi…
Encountering the Future
Encountering the Future
The Ecobiopolitics of Space Biomedicine
Using data from an ethnographic study of American astronautics, I argue that, in an inversion of the usual clinical model, astronaut medical subjecthood is fundamentally environmental rather than biological. In extreme environments like outer space, the concept of environment cannot be bracketed out from life processes; as a result, investments of power and knowledge shift from life itself to the sites of interface among living things, technologi…
Political Ecology in the Extreme
This case study examines how, in a post-Cold War context, aerospace and astronautics practices and policies are becoming more comprehensively attached to national and international environmental politics. This is evident in the emergence of a dual identity for Near Earth Objects (asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them close to the Earth); they are astronomical as well as environmental objects that are considered to be threats as well as…
Extreme
This paper introduces a special collection of Anthropological Quarterly for examining "the extreme" in contemporary modernity. Drawing upon sites of political, scientific, and economic engagement that source specifically to the extraterrestrial, we argue that the figure of the extreme shapes an analytic of limits and ever-opening horizons-epistemological and physical-provoking new understandings of humanness, environment, temporality, and of inte…
Beyond the Anthropocene
As "the Anthropocene" emerges as a geological term and environmental analytic, this paper examines its emerging rhetorical topology. We show that Anthropocene narratives evince a macroscale division between an "inner" and "outer" environment. This division situates an Anthropocenic environment that matters in the surface zone between Earth's subsurface and the extraterrestrial "outer spaces" that we address here. We review literature in the scien…
Relational Space
Anthropology off the Earth opens to new questions and futures for our disciplinary project and reach, while at the same time compelling revisits to classic sites of anthropological inquiry and critique. Taking as a given that human labor and imagination are neither limitable to, nor severable from, terrestrial-scapes of knowledge and practice, we argue that conceptually and materially working with outer space offers a unique opportunity to engage…
Into the Extreme
State-level regulation of disinfection byproducts in the United States
Disinfection byproducts (DBPs), residual compounds formed from the chemical disinfection of drinking water, can cause a host of damaging public health and environmental impacts. This study evaluates the landscape of regulations designed to reduce the occurrence and/or impact of DBPs, focusing on regulations issued by the US states. Drawing on a systematic search of state administrative codes and agency websites, we first identify the presence, ab…
Climate change and agricultural workers in the Michoacán avocado industry
The rapidly expanding demand for avocado production places significant strain on agricultural communities and associated ecosystems. As temperature increases and water scarcity worsens, the avocado, a high-water demanding crop, faces declining yields and increased tree mortality. Deforestation, monoculture farming, and pesticide use further threaten interconnected landscapes, reducing biodiversity, degrading soil quality, and devaluing natural ca…
Epistemology (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature (3 works) · Environmental ethics (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Politics (3 works) · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture (2 works) · Astronautics (2 works)