E-mail this pageSociology Faculty - Dr. Lauren Eastwood
Assistant Professor of Sociology
"My area of expertise is in Sociology of the Environment, with an emphasis on international environmental policymaking that takes place through the U.N., In my work, I analyze NGO and Indigenous Peoples participation in various international forest policy making processes. I am also interested in domestic environmental policy issues, and am beginning projects on (1) the debates surrounding Genetically Modified Organisms, (2) the shifting politics of Coalbed Methane (CBM) extraction in Montana and Wyoming which allow for alliances between indigenous peoples, ranchers, and environmentalists, and (3) Latin and North American revolutionary movements that critique neo-liberal economic and political policies in the current phase of globalization. Theoretically, my research is informed by a post-structuralist analysis of discourse, power, and governmentality, combined with a historical materialist analysis of people's actual activities. I am connected in with a group of U.S. and Canadian scholars who utilize the methodology of Institutional Ethnography, which takes as a research problematic the manner in which everyday activities are organized by larger social relations."
Education
- Ph.D. in Sociology, Syracuse University, 2002
- M.A. in Sociology, Syracuse University, 1996
- B.A. in Environmental Studies, Rollins College, 1991
Teaching Areas
- Sociology of Women
- Sociological Theory
- Sociology of the Environment
Research Areas
- United Nations and the participation of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples.
- Community responses to Coalbed Methane extraction in the U.S., particularly in the Powder River Basin Area of Wyoming and Montana.
- Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)-the intersection of science and politics in the regulation of GMOs, and social responses to GMOs.
Recent and Forthcoming Publications
- The Social Organization of Policy: An Institutional Ethnography of UN Forest Deliberations (2005) New York: Routledge
- Making the Institution Ethnographically Accessible: UN Document Production and the Transformation of Experience. (forthcoming-2006). In Institutional Ethnography as Practice. Edited by Dorothy E. Smith. Alta Mira Press.
- Contesting the Economic Order: Resisting the Media Construction of Reality. (forthcoming-2006). In Igniting a Revolution. Edited by Best, Stephen and Anthony J. Nocella. AK Press
Contact Dr. Lauren Eastwood
Office: Redcay Hall 231
Phone: (518) 564-3309
E-mail: eastwole@plattsburgh.edu