Ellen Kohl
Biographic Data
| ID | 1340644 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ellen Kohl |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ellen |
| FAMILY NAME | Kohl |
| SIGNATURE | KOHL E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4713-6901 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 164 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Obscuring double vulnerability
How pollution is framed influences not only the research done on pollution but also the solutions sought by policy makers. Given that environmental policies are based on scientific research, it is important to not only understand how science is translated into policy, but also how conceptions of science influence problem formation and issue identification. In this article, through an investigation of Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Pr…
History of Risk Assessments of the Organophosphate Pesticide Chlorpyrifos at the US Environmental Protection Agency, 1980‒2024
This article examines the history of risk assessments of the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), especially after a ban on household uses in 2000. Federal funding enabled more noncorporate and place-based scientific investigations of this pesticide’s harms, including child-cohort epidemiology of populations impacted through environmental injustices. This article argues, first, that their finding…
The Co-Development of Environmental Justice and Children’s Environmental Health at the EPA
Background: In the early 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was confronting multiple challenges to its regulatory decision making. Regulated industries and congressional supporters were criticizing the agency for overestimating risk and producing regulations that were too costly. At the same time, environmental and public health advocates were criticizing the agency for not doing enough to protect communities of color, low-income co…
Rights for nature or protecting people’s rights
Legal Rights for Whose Nature
In this article, we explore rights of nature (RoN) as an emerging rights-based environmental governance that intends to reframe nature from property to an entity with a right to exist unharmed. Its proponents claim this is a paradigm shift that reworks the imbalanced human–nature hierarchy. We interrogate this claim using data collected from more than 60 U.S. communities where RoN ordinances have been implemented. Our analysis identifies three re…
The Problem of Accountability
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the epicenter of national environmental justice (EJ) work since President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order (EO) 12898 in 1994. Despite this continued focus, black, Indigenous, and people of color and low-income communities still bear the brunt of environmental harms. Although the EO began to institutionalize EJ work within EPA and across the federal government, implementing EPA's…
From ‘marginal to marginal’
How damaging was the Trump administration to environmental justice (EJ) efforts and policy? Since federal EJ oversight at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is governed by executive order, rather than statute, approaches to it have varied by presidential administration. In this paper, we draw on interviews with current and recently retired EPA employees along with staffing and budget data, to examine how EJ has historically b…
Some we’s weren’t part of we’
In this paper, I use an interaction between environmental justice activists, local city officials, and representatives of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish the role of place-based identities in intersectional politics of belonging for environmental justice activists. I analyze a conversation around the word we that occurred during a Collaborative Problem Solving workshop run by EPA Region 4 to explore how mundan…
You’re not welcome at my table
In this article, we reflect on the need for, and geography of, embodied cross-racial talk in the current political context. We reflect on our 2015 article ‘Kitchen Table Reflexivity: Negotiating Positionality through Everyday Talk’ to question whether we were too optimistic in our advocacy of the kitchen table as a space for racial reconciliation through interracial dialogue. We draw on our own experiences to explore multiple tables at which we m…
My Drought is Different from Your Drought
This paper explores the relationship between scientific operationalizations of drought and the politics of water management during times of drought. Drawing on a case study of the 2007–09 drought in Georgia in the southeastern United States, this paper examines how multiple ways of knowing drought were produced, circulated, and utilized by stakeholders. Moreover, this paper explores the policy implications of these multiple ways of knowing drough…
We've Been Studied to Death, We Ain't Gotten Anything
The women of the Newtown Florist Club (NFC) in Gainesville, Georgia, have been studied. . .a lot. They have been studied by Georgia state governmental organizations that concluded that increased ra
State Regulation and Environmental Justice
In this paper, we explore how environmental justice activists’ reliance on state regulation has inhibited their ability to achieve their goals – an important topic whose oversight we do not believe
Kitchen table reflexivity
In this article, we explore the role of self-reflexivity in the understanding of positionality in human geography to argue that self-reflexivity in and of itself does not offer researchers sufficient opportunities to question and critique their fluid, ever-changing positionalities. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars, critical race scholars, and experiences carrying out qualitative research, we argue that formal and informal conversations wi…
Kitchen table reflexivity
In this article, we explore the role of self-reflexivity in the understanding of positionality in human geography to argue that self-reflexivity in and of itself does not offer researchers sufficient opportunities to question and critique their fluid, ever-changing positionalities. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars, critical race scholars, and experiences carrying out qualitative research, we argue that formal and informal conversations wi…
State Regulation and Environmental Justice
In this paper, we explore how environmental justice activists’ reliance on state regulation has inhibited their ability to achieve their goals – an important topic whose oversight we do not believe
We've Been Studied to Death, We Ain't Gotten Anything
The women of the Newtown Florist Club (NFC) in Gainesville, Georgia, have been studied. . .a lot. They have been studied by Georgia state governmental organizations that concluded that increased ra
You’re not welcome at my table
In this article, we reflect on the need for, and geography of, embodied cross-racial talk in the current political context. We reflect on our 2015 article ‘Kitchen Table Reflexivity: Negotiating Positionality through Everyday Talk’ to question whether we were too optimistic in our advocacy of the kitchen table as a space for racial reconciliation through interracial dialogue. We draw on our own experiences to explore multiple tables at which we m…
From ‘marginal to marginal’
How damaging was the Trump administration to environmental justice (EJ) efforts and policy? Since federal EJ oversight at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is governed by executive order, rather than statute, approaches to it have varied by presidential administration. In this paper, we draw on interviews with current and recently retired EPA employees along with staffing and budget data, to examine how EJ has historically b…
Legal Rights for Whose Nature
In this article, we explore rights of nature (RoN) as an emerging rights-based environmental governance that intends to reframe nature from property to an entity with a right to exist unharmed. Its proponents claim this is a paradigm shift that reworks the imbalanced human–nature hierarchy. We interrogate this claim using data collected from more than 60 U.S. communities where RoN ordinances have been implemented. Our analysis identifies three re…
Some we’s weren’t part of we’
In this paper, I use an interaction between environmental justice activists, local city officials, and representatives of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish the role of place-based identities in intersectional politics of belonging for environmental justice activists. I analyze a conversation around the word we that occurred during a Collaborative Problem Solving workshop run by EPA Region 4 to explore how mundan…
Kitchen table reflexivity
In this article, we explore the role of self-reflexivity in the understanding of positionality in human geography to argue that self-reflexivity in and of itself does not offer researchers sufficient opportunities to question and critique their fluid, ever-changing positionalities. Drawing on the work of feminist scholars, critical race scholars, and experiences carrying out qualitative research, we argue that formal and informal conversations wi…
My Drought is Different from Your Drought
This paper explores the relationship between scientific operationalizations of drought and the politics of water management during times of drought. Drawing on a case study of the 2007–09 drought in Georgia in the southeastern United States, this paper examines how multiple ways of knowing drought were produced, circulated, and utilized by stakeholders. Moreover, this paper explores the policy implications of these multiple ways of knowing drough…
We've Been Studied to Death, We Ain't Gotten Anything
The women of the Newtown Florist Club (NFC) in Gainesville, Georgia, have been studied. . .a lot. They have been studied by Georgia state governmental organizations that concluded that increased ra
State Regulation and Environmental Justice
In this paper, we explore how environmental justice activists’ reliance on state regulation has inhibited their ability to achieve their goals – an important topic whose oversight we do not believe
You’re not welcome at my table
In this article, we reflect on the need for, and geography of, embodied cross-racial talk in the current political context. We reflect on our 2015 article ‘Kitchen Table Reflexivity: Negotiating Positionality through Everyday Talk’ to question whether we were too optimistic in our advocacy of the kitchen table as a space for racial reconciliation through interracial dialogue. We draw on our own experiences to explore multiple tables at which we m…
Some we’s weren’t part of we’
In this paper, I use an interaction between environmental justice activists, local city officials, and representatives of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish the role of place-based identities in intersectional politics of belonging for environmental justice activists. I analyze a conversation around the word we that occurred during a Collaborative Problem Solving workshop run by EPA Region 4 to explore how mundan…
The Problem of Accountability
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been the epicenter of national environmental justice (EJ) work since President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order (EO) 12898 in 1994. Despite this continued focus, black, Indigenous, and people of color and low-income communities still bear the brunt of environmental harms. Although the EO began to institutionalize EJ work within EPA and across the federal government, implementing EPA's…
From ‘marginal to marginal’
How damaging was the Trump administration to environmental justice (EJ) efforts and policy? Since federal EJ oversight at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is governed by executive order, rather than statute, approaches to it have varied by presidential administration. In this paper, we draw on interviews with current and recently retired EPA employees along with staffing and budget data, to examine how EJ has historically b…
Legal Rights for Whose Nature
In this article, we explore rights of nature (RoN) as an emerging rights-based environmental governance that intends to reframe nature from property to an entity with a right to exist unharmed. Its proponents claim this is a paradigm shift that reworks the imbalanced human–nature hierarchy. We interrogate this claim using data collected from more than 60 U.S. communities where RoN ordinances have been implemented. Our analysis identifies three re…
The Co-Development of Environmental Justice and Children’s Environmental Health at the EPA
Background: In the early 1990s, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was confronting multiple challenges to its regulatory decision making. Regulated industries and congressional supporters were criticizing the agency for overestimating risk and producing regulations that were too costly. At the same time, environmental and public health advocates were criticizing the agency for not doing enough to protect communities of color, low-income co…
Rights for nature or protecting people’s rights
History of Risk Assessments of the Organophosphate Pesticide Chlorpyrifos at the US Environmental Protection Agency, 1980‒2024
This article examines the history of risk assessments of the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), especially after a ban on household uses in 2000. Federal funding enabled more noncorporate and place-based scientific investigations of this pesticide’s harms, including child-cohort epidemiology of populations impacted through environmental injustices. This article argues, first, that their finding…
Obscuring double vulnerability
How pollution is framed influences not only the research done on pollution but also the solutions sought by policy makers. Given that environmental policies are based on scientific research, it is important to not only understand how science is translated into policy, but also how conceptions of science influence problem formation and issue identification. In this article, through an investigation of Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Pr…
Political science (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Politics (7 works) · Environmental justice (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Environmental ethics (4 works) · Social science (4 works)