Alissa Cordner
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 129348 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Alissa Cordner |
| PRENOMES | Alissa |
| SOBRENOME | Cordner |
| ASSINATURA | CORDNER A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Whitman College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5223-2848 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 142 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2012 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Regrettable for whom? GenX chemicals as a case study in detrimental chemical substitution
Persistent chemicals, persistent activism
Engagement with science is a prominent feature for many social movements, yet the dimensions of that scientific engagement and bidirectional relationships between science and advocacy are incompletely theorized in social movement scholarship. While social movement scholarship has previously demonstrated the importance of external political and economic factors for social movement processes and efficacy, we show that the emergence and success of e…
Reaching for PFAS solutions
Workplace tentativity
Drawing from data gathered for two ethnographic case studies within the U.S. Forest Service, we develop the concept of workplace tentativity to describe the ways that the biophysical environment influences organizational workplace routines. We find that outdoor labor, routines, and plans adjust to biophysical change and uncertainty, and we examine the resulting organizational and micro-interactional dynamics when such instances occur. Under condi…
Improving governance of “forever chemicals” in the US and beyond
State Messaging on Toxic Chemical Exposure
Government websites are an important tool for communicating information about environmental exposures and emerging public health concerns to the public. This includes how US state websites frame risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and how these risks are communicated to the public through e-government. We conducted a content analysis of US states’ websites about PFAS, analyzing narratives on federal regulation, health…
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…
Staring at the Sun during Wildfire Season
Is the Pandemic Personal or Political? The Influence of Demographics and Risk Proximity on Attitudes toward Covid-19 Policy in Washington State
Many social factors affect the extent to which people may support governmental policies aimed at mitigating risk. The authors ask how demographic variables, preexisting vulnerability, and proximity to health, economic, and care work impacts may shape attitudes about governmental policies aimed at risk reduction during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Grounding their analysis in literature on risk perception and attitudes about he…
Producing Ignorance Through Regulatory Structure
This article examines how ignorance can be produced by regulatory systems. Using the case of contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), we identify patterns of institutionalized ignorance in U.S. chemical regulation. Drawing on in-depth interviews and archival research, we develop a chemical regulatory pathway approach to study knowledge and ignorance production through the regulatory framework, the Toxic Substances Control Ac…
Covid-19 as Eco-Pandemic Injustice
The COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with a powerful upsurge in antiracist activism in the United States, linking many forms and consequences of racism to public and environmental health. This commentary develops the concept of eco-pandemic injustice to explain interrelationships between the pandemic and socioecological systems, demonstrating how COVID-19 both reveals and deepens structural inequalities that form along lines of environmental healt…
Toxic trespass
This chapter situates issues of environmental contamination and contested knowledge within the history of environmental justice and popular epidemiology, focusing on the social and scientific discovery of environmental contaminants and responses by science, government, and social movements. The authors examine the “toxic trespass” of chemicals that violate our bodies and environment without permission, drawing on the case study of per- and polyfl…
Toxic truths
Political strategies for seeking environmental justice Introduction to Part III -Alice Mah 8 Legitimating confrontational discourses by local environmental groups: The case of air quality monitoring in a Spanish industrial area -Miguel A
Combining Social Science and Environmental Health Research for Community Engagement
Social science-environmental health (SS-EH) research takes many structural forms and contributes to a wide variety of topical areas. In this article we discuss the general nature of SS-EH contributions and offer a new typology of SS-EH practice that situates this type of research in a larger transdisciplinary sensibility: (1) environmental health science influenced by social science; (2) social science studies of environmental health; and (3) soc…
Environmental chemicals and public sociology
We report here on a multifaceted body of research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals that have become a well-known group of 'emerging contaminants' in recent years. Our PFAS Project team of over 10 researchers - faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates - has been working since 2015 to study the extent and health effects of PFAS contamination through a broad model of engaged public sociology. Our model of rese…
Covering Wildfires
This article examines salient topics and textual silences in the media coverage of two major wildfires in Washington State. A significant body of research has examined the importance of media coverage in framing disaster events, yet gaps remain in scholarly understanding of wildfire media coverage. In this article, we explore the following questions: How did the print media cover the Carlton Complex and Okanogan Complex fires in Washington State?…
Non-stick science
Understandings of environmental governance both assume and challenge the relationship between expert knowledge and corresponding action. We explore this interplay by examining the context of knowledge production pertaining to a contested class of chemicals. Per-and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs) are widely used industrial compounds containing chemical chains of carbon and fluorine that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic. Although…
Factors associated with self-reported health
Based on the many significant associations between SRH and serological assays of health risk, sociodemographic measures, health care access and utilization, and lifestyle factors, SRH appears to be a useful health indicator with potential relevance for screening level community-based health and environmental studies
A multisector alliance approach to environmental social movements
Research on environmental social movements often focuses on movements that target a limited spectrum of policy outcomes and that mobilize primarily around a relatively narrow swath of environmental issues. Through a case study of research and advocacy around flame retardant (FR) chemicals, we describe an unusual multisector alliance involving a broad coalition of participants and multiple levels of state and non-state targets aimed at influencing…
Defining and defending risk
Strategic Science Translation and Environmental Controversies
In contested areas of environmental research and policy, all stakeholders are likely to claim that their position is scientifically grounded but disagree about the relevant scientific conclusions or the weight of the evidence. In this article, I draw on a year of participant observation and over 110 in-depth interviews, with the case study of controversial chemicals used as flame retardants in consumer products. I develop the concept of strategic…
Playing with Fire. Flame-Retardant Activists and Policy Arenas
Moments of Uncertainty
Science on emerging environmental health threats involves numerous ethical concerns related to scientific uncertainty about conducting, interpreting, communicating, and acting upon research findings, but the connections between ethical decision making and scientific uncertainty are under-studied in sociology. Under conditions of scientific uncertainty, researcher conduct is not fully prescribed by formal ethical codes of conduct, increasing the i…
Disavowing Politics
Today, Americans are simultaneously skeptical of and engaged with political life. How does widespread cynicism affect the culture of civic participation? What are the implications for democracy? This study synthesizes data from a one-year collective ethnography of seven civic groups and theoretical work on boundary making, ambiguity, and role distancing. The authors find skepticism generates “disavowal of the political,” a cultural idiom that all…
Non-stick science
Understandings of environmental governance both assume and challenge the relationship between expert knowledge and corresponding action. We explore this interplay by examining the context of knowledge production pertaining to a contested class of chemicals. Per-and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs) are widely used industrial compounds containing chemical chains of carbon and fluorine that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic. Although…
Disavowing Politics
Today, Americans are simultaneously skeptical of and engaged with political life. How does widespread cynicism affect the culture of civic participation? What are the implications for democracy? This study synthesizes data from a one-year collective ethnography of seven civic groups and theoretical work on boundary making, ambiguity, and role distancing. The authors find skepticism generates “disavowal of the political,” a cultural idiom that all…
Toxic truths
Political strategies for seeking environmental justice Introduction to Part III -Alice Mah 8 Legitimating confrontational discourses by local environmental groups: The case of air quality monitoring in a Spanish industrial area -Miguel A
Reflexive Research Ethics for Environmental Health and Justice
Community-engaged research on environmental problems has reshaped researcher-participant relationships, academic-community interaction, and the role of community partners in human subjects protection and ethical oversight. We draw on our own and others' research collaborations with environmental health and justice social movement organizations to discuss the ethical concerns that emerge in community-engaged research. In this paper we introduce th…
Co-designing and Co-teaching Graduate Qualitative Methods
This article describes an innovative collaboration between graduate students and a faculty member to co-design and co-teach a graduate-level workshop-style qualitative methods course. The goal of co-designing and co-teaching the course was to involve advanced graduate students in all aspects of designing a syllabus and leading class discussions in a required course for first-year graduate students. The authors describe the multiple stages involve…
Producing Ignorance Through Regulatory Structure
This article examines how ignorance can be produced by regulatory systems. Using the case of contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), we identify patterns of institutionalized ignorance in U.S. chemical regulation. Drawing on in-depth interviews and archival research, we develop a chemical regulatory pathway approach to study knowledge and ignorance production through the regulatory framework, the Toxic Substances Control Ac…
Is the Pandemic Personal or Political? The Influence of Demographics and Risk Proximity on Attitudes toward Covid-19 Policy in Washington State
Many social factors affect the extent to which people may support governmental policies aimed at mitigating risk. The authors ask how demographic variables, preexisting vulnerability, and proximity to health, economic, and care work impacts may shape attitudes about governmental policies aimed at risk reduction during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Grounding their analysis in literature on risk perception and attitudes about he…
Covering Wildfires
This article examines salient topics and textual silences in the media coverage of two major wildfires in Washington State. A significant body of research has examined the importance of media coverage in framing disaster events, yet gaps remain in scholarly understanding of wildfire media coverage. In this article, we explore the following questions: How did the print media cover the Carlton Complex and Okanogan Complex fires in Washington State?…
Moments of Uncertainty
Science on emerging environmental health threats involves numerous ethical concerns related to scientific uncertainty about conducting, interpreting, communicating, and acting upon research findings, but the connections between ethical decision making and scientific uncertainty are under-studied in sociology. Under conditions of scientific uncertainty, researcher conduct is not fully prescribed by formal ethical codes of conduct, increasing the i…
Environmental chemicals and public sociology
We report here on a multifaceted body of research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals that have become a well-known group of 'emerging contaminants' in recent years. Our PFAS Project team of over 10 researchers - faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates - has been working since 2015 to study the extent and health effects of PFAS contamination through a broad model of engaged public sociology. Our model of rese…
A multisector alliance approach to environmental social movements
Research on environmental social movements often focuses on movements that target a limited spectrum of policy outcomes and that mobilize primarily around a relatively narrow swath of environmental issues. Through a case study of research and advocacy around flame retardant (FR) chemicals, we describe an unusual multisector alliance involving a broad coalition of participants and multiple levels of state and non-state targets aimed at influencing…
Strategic Science Translation and Environmental Controversies
In contested areas of environmental research and policy, all stakeholders are likely to claim that their position is scientifically grounded but disagree about the relevant scientific conclusions or the weight of the evidence. In this article, I draw on a year of participant observation and over 110 in-depth interviews, with the case study of controversial chemicals used as flame retardants in consumer products. I develop the concept of strategic…
Persistent chemicals, persistent activism
Engagement with science is a prominent feature for many social movements, yet the dimensions of that scientific engagement and bidirectional relationships between science and advocacy are incompletely theorized in social movement scholarship. While social movement scholarship has previously demonstrated the importance of external political and economic factors for social movement processes and efficacy, we show that the emergence and success of e…
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…
Staring at the Sun during Wildfire Season
Covid-19 as Eco-Pandemic Injustice
The COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with a powerful upsurge in antiracist activism in the United States, linking many forms and consequences of racism to public and environmental health. This commentary develops the concept of eco-pandemic injustice to explain interrelationships between the pandemic and socioecological systems, demonstrating how COVID-19 both reveals and deepens structural inequalities that form along lines of environmental healt…
The health care access and utilization of homeschooled children in the United States
Co-designing and Co-teaching Graduate Qualitative Methods
This article describes an innovative collaboration between graduate students and a faculty member to co-design and co-teach a graduate-level workshop-style qualitative methods course. The goal of co-designing and co-teaching the course was to involve advanced graduate students in all aspects of designing a syllabus and leading class discussions in a required course for first-year graduate students. The authors describe the multiple stages involve…
Reflexive Research Ethics for Environmental Health and Justice
Community-engaged research on environmental problems has reshaped researcher-participant relationships, academic-community interaction, and the role of community partners in human subjects protection and ethical oversight. We draw on our own and others' research collaborations with environmental health and justice social movement organizations to discuss the ethical concerns that emerge in community-engaged research. In this paper we introduce th…
The health care access and utilization of homeschooled children in the United States
Moments of Uncertainty
Science on emerging environmental health threats involves numerous ethical concerns related to scientific uncertainty about conducting, interpreting, communicating, and acting upon research findings, but the connections between ethical decision making and scientific uncertainty are under-studied in sociology. Under conditions of scientific uncertainty, researcher conduct is not fully prescribed by formal ethical codes of conduct, increasing the i…
Disavowing Politics
Today, Americans are simultaneously skeptical of and engaged with political life. How does widespread cynicism affect the culture of civic participation? What are the implications for democracy? This study synthesizes data from a one-year collective ethnography of seven civic groups and theoretical work on boundary making, ambiguity, and role distancing. The authors find skepticism generates “disavowal of the political,” a cultural idiom that all…
Playing with Fire. Flame-Retardant Activists and Policy Arenas
A multisector alliance approach to environmental social movements
Research on environmental social movements often focuses on movements that target a limited spectrum of policy outcomes and that mobilize primarily around a relatively narrow swath of environmental issues. Through a case study of research and advocacy around flame retardant (FR) chemicals, we describe an unusual multisector alliance involving a broad coalition of participants and multiple levels of state and non-state targets aimed at influencing…
Defining and defending risk
Strategic Science Translation and Environmental Controversies
In contested areas of environmental research and policy, all stakeholders are likely to claim that their position is scientifically grounded but disagree about the relevant scientific conclusions or the weight of the evidence. In this article, I draw on a year of participant observation and over 110 in-depth interviews, with the case study of controversial chemicals used as flame retardants in consumer products. I develop the concept of strategic…
Factors associated with self-reported health
Based on the many significant associations between SRH and serological assays of health risk, sociodemographic measures, health care access and utilization, and lifestyle factors, SRH appears to be a useful health indicator with potential relevance for screening level community-based health and environmental studies
Covering Wildfires
This article examines salient topics and textual silences in the media coverage of two major wildfires in Washington State. A significant body of research has examined the importance of media coverage in framing disaster events, yet gaps remain in scholarly understanding of wildfire media coverage. In this article, we explore the following questions: How did the print media cover the Carlton Complex and Okanogan Complex fires in Washington State?…
Non-stick science
Understandings of environmental governance both assume and challenge the relationship between expert knowledge and corresponding action. We explore this interplay by examining the context of knowledge production pertaining to a contested class of chemicals. Per-and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFASs) are widely used industrial compounds containing chemical chains of carbon and fluorine that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic. Although…
Combining Social Science and Environmental Health Research for Community Engagement
Social science-environmental health (SS-EH) research takes many structural forms and contributes to a wide variety of topical areas. In this article we discuss the general nature of SS-EH contributions and offer a new typology of SS-EH practice that situates this type of research in a larger transdisciplinary sensibility: (1) environmental health science influenced by social science; (2) social science studies of environmental health; and (3) soc…
Environmental chemicals and public sociology
We report here on a multifaceted body of research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), chemicals that have become a well-known group of 'emerging contaminants' in recent years. Our PFAS Project team of over 10 researchers - faculty, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduates - has been working since 2015 to study the extent and health effects of PFAS contamination through a broad model of engaged public sociology. Our model of rese…
Toxic trespass
This chapter situates issues of environmental contamination and contested knowledge within the history of environmental justice and popular epidemiology, focusing on the social and scientific discovery of environmental contaminants and responses by science, government, and social movements. The authors examine the “toxic trespass” of chemicals that violate our bodies and environment without permission, drawing on the case study of per- and polyfl…
Toxic truths
Political strategies for seeking environmental justice Introduction to Part III -Alice Mah 8 Legitimating confrontational discourses by local environmental groups: The case of air quality monitoring in a Spanish industrial area -Miguel A
State Messaging on Toxic Chemical Exposure
Government websites are an important tool for communicating information about environmental exposures and emerging public health concerns to the public. This includes how US state websites frame risks associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and how these risks are communicated to the public through e-government. We conducted a content analysis of US states’ websites about PFAS, analyzing narratives on federal regulation, health…
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…
Staring at the Sun during Wildfire Season
Is the Pandemic Personal or Political? The Influence of Demographics and Risk Proximity on Attitudes toward Covid-19 Policy in Washington State
Many social factors affect the extent to which people may support governmental policies aimed at mitigating risk. The authors ask how demographic variables, preexisting vulnerability, and proximity to health, economic, and care work impacts may shape attitudes about governmental policies aimed at risk reduction during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Grounding their analysis in literature on risk perception and attitudes about he…
Producing Ignorance Through Regulatory Structure
This article examines how ignorance can be produced by regulatory systems. Using the case of contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), we identify patterns of institutionalized ignorance in U.S. chemical regulation. Drawing on in-depth interviews and archival research, we develop a chemical regulatory pathway approach to study knowledge and ignorance production through the regulatory framework, the Toxic Substances Control Ac…
Covid-19 as Eco-Pandemic Injustice
The COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with a powerful upsurge in antiracist activism in the United States, linking many forms and consequences of racism to public and environmental health. This commentary develops the concept of eco-pandemic injustice to explain interrelationships between the pandemic and socioecological systems, demonstrating how COVID-19 both reveals and deepens structural inequalities that form along lines of environmental healt…
Improving governance of “forever chemicals” in the US and beyond
Workplace tentativity
Drawing from data gathered for two ethnographic case studies within the U.S. Forest Service, we develop the concept of workplace tentativity to describe the ways that the biophysical environment influences organizational workplace routines. We find that outdoor labor, routines, and plans adjust to biophysical change and uncertainty, and we examine the resulting organizational and micro-interactional dynamics when such instances occur. Under condi…
Political science (21 obras) · Sociology (18 obras) · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities (13 obras) · Public relations (13 obras) · Business (10 obras) · Medicine (9 obras) · Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances research (8 obras) · Social science (8 obras) · Computer Science (7 obras) · Engineering (7 obras)