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.
This month’s theme is the environment—one of the most urgent and consequential areas of social science inquiry, and the site of profound human-driven change. As we close out Earth Month, we invite you to explore Items‘s rich archive of research and commentary on environmental questions, including essay collections on Hurricane Katrina and the structural causes of environmental disaster, water-related conflict and crisis, extreme weather and uncertainty, and crisis and collaboration across the Indian Ocean.
The readings below highlight how social science research can illuminate the impact of new environmental realities on society. How does environmental change shape the prospects for peace? What does ecological crisis mean for Indigenous sovereignty, religious life, and political freedom? The social sciences help us see environmental change not only as a scientific crisis, but as a political, cultural, and moral one.
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