2019 American Sociological Association Environmental Sociology Outreach and Engagement Award Recipient
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2019 American Sociological Association Marxist Sociology Praxis Award Recipient
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2019 Pacific Sociological Association Distinguished Contribution to Sociological Praxis Award Recipient
I am a researcher and public sociologist, who conducts community action research, with an emphasis on environmental justice and gender, class, and ableist inequalities. Most of my research involves ethnographic and multi-method examination. I have worked with a variety of communities, and have conducted research in various places across Idaho, and as far away as Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
Here is an article about my action research in Blot Magazine, a UI student-run magazine: "Championing Change" by Parya Poosti
Syringa Mobile Home Park, 2015 - 2019
I started research in Syringa one year after residents, through the University of Idaho Legal Aid Clinic, filed a class action lawsuit against the park's landlord. It was clear that the landlord was willing to shut down this community, rather than pay out a modest amount of money to compensate for the hardships and indignities residents experienced while living for 93 days without running water in the winter of 2013-14. Facing frequent boil order notices, social stigma, and threats of closure, residents sought public understanding of Syringa's importance as a community. This research was the means for us to bear witness to residents' experiences in the face of these challenges.
Mobile Home Communities Organizing for Change, 2023-present
In October 2022, four mobile home communities located along the outskirts of Moscow, Idaho, were purchased by a single corporate investment firm, Hurst & Son, LLC, located in Washington state. I have worked with residents since January 2023 to organize a four-community cooperative with NW Cooperative Development Center and to seek legal support from the Intermountain Fair Housing Council. Many of the lessons from Syringa Mobile Home Park have prompted residents to stay informed about their rights and to work together in communicating concerns with the new owner and management.
Nimiipuu Protecting Ancestral Lands from Megaloads, 2015-2017
In early August 2013, members of the Nez Perce Tribe Executive Committee issued a statement refusing to approve the passage of "megaloads" on Highway 12, which passes through the Nez Perce reservation and through ancestral lands. The oversized commercial shipments destined for northern Alberta's oil sand extraction sites required the widening of this wild and scenic corridor. I joined founding members of Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment in conducting a survey of Nimiipuu members which enabled us to develop a report -- created by and for tribal members -- that was submitted to the Idaho Transportation Department and the US Forest Service in October 2016. The US Forest Service reached the decision in January 2017 to prohibit passage of megaloads along the US Highway 12 corridor.
I conducted my first community research project...
in Komsomolsk, Ukraine, 2002-2003, which continued to 2009. City of Komsomolsk leaders, including Irina Kovra (center of photo during survey training), worked with me to devise a citywide survey of residents to understand their quality of life, including health, ecological conditions, childcare, and economic livelihoods. My research found many areas of informal economic activities shaped by social class and gender relations: temporary migrant labor, micro-enterprise development in garment making, and dacha gardening. A team of 10 Ukrainian survey interviewers collected a very large sample of 4,500 residents! I also interviewed 28 of the households that had been surveyed (at the time in the Russian language). The lower photograph includes several members of the research team in Komsomolsk (now Horishni Plavni), Ukraine, in the summer 2002.
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I am returning to the rich data collected in the early 2000s to write a retrospective analysis of gender, social class, and ability privilege during this pivotal era of Ukraine's independence. The title of this book project is Work on the Edge of Empires: Social Reproduction Before Revolution and War.