Welcome to Items & Issues, the relaunched monthly newsletter from the Social Science Research Council. Since 1947, Items has served as a platform for sharing the SSRC's work and fostering broader conversations about the social sciences. This newsletter continues that tradition, offering a curated selection of social science readings drawn from Council platforms and the wider field.
Featured Theme: Environment
Deborah Cheng, curator of “Just Environments,” concludes the series with a look back at the diverse set of essays that connect environmental justice to social-structural,…
Lindsey Dillon, Christopher Sellers, and the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) conclude the “Just Environments” series with a sobering look at the Trump administration’s…
Jaskiran Dhillon continues the “Just Environments” series with a reflection on the Standing Rock Sioux’s resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline, asking us to consider…
Trending Essays
In this archive piece from 1992, Joan Martínez-Alier and Eric Hershberg reflect on the then-emerging area of research that examines how poor people’s movements advance…
This piece by Victor Ogbonnaya Okorie examines the 2011 groundwater contamination emergency in the Niger Delta and how it was shaped by the neoliberal water…
Drawing upon a long history of anti-racist, feminist, and decolonial struggles, Malini Ranganathan continues our “Just Environments” series with an essay that suggests freedom can…
Frontiers
This essay explores the theoretical and empirical relationship between peace and the environment in the modern era, confronting human-driven environmental changes with potentially catastrophic effects.
This essay proposes a new framework for compensating contributions to sustainable stewardship of the environment, prioritizing the restoration of Indigenous sovereignty and land.
This article explores why people in climate-vulnerable regions of Kenya and Namibia express more hope for the future than many in Germany, despite facing greater…