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WORK TITLE: For-Profit Democracy
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1985
WEBSITE: http://lokaashwood.com/
CITY: Auburn
STATE: AL
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
334-844-4953 (Office)
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1985, in IL.
EDUCATION:Northwestern University, B.S., 2007; National University of Ireland, Galway, M.Litt. (with first-class honors), 2009; University of Wisconsin, Madison, Ph.D., 2015.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Sociologist, educator, and writer. National University of Ireland, Galway, teaching assistant, 2008; University of Wisconsin, Madison, teaching assistant, 2011, 2012, and 2014; Auburn University, Auburn, AL, assistant professor of agricultural economics and rural sociology, 2015—. Also worked as a journalist, including for the Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville, 2006.
MEMBER:American Association of Geographers, American Sociological Association, Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences, International Association for Society and Natural Resources, Law and Society, Rural Sociological Society, Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, and Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society.
Fred Buttel Award, European Society for Rural Sociology, 2009, for best graduate student paper; recipient of research grants.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including From Community to Consumption: New and Classical Themes in Rural Sociological Research, edited by A. Bonanno, H. Bakker, R. Jussaume, Y. Kawamura and M. Shucksmith, Emerald Publishing, 2010; and The International Handbook of Rural Studies, edited by D. Brown and M. Shucksmith, Francis and Taylor, 2016. Contributor to professional journals, including Agriculture and Human Values, New Solutions, Rural Sociology, and Sociologia Ruralis. Coeditor of 2016 Journal of Rural Studies special issue, “Rural as a Dimension of Environmental Injustice,” Volume 76. Also guest columnist, Newspaper Guild, “Newspapers’ Woes Begin in J-School,” 2007.
SIDELIGHTS
Loka Ashwood is a sociologist whose primary areas of interest are the relationships between people and their environmental surroundings, with the politics of justice as a common thread across her work. Ashwood often collaborates with communities to address pollution and inequality in these communities. She also studies the larger structures that shape injustices via a study of history and sociological theory. In addition to contributing to professional journals, Ashwood collaborated with Michael Mayerfeld Bell on the fifth edition of An Invitation to Environmental Sociology, which focuses on a broad range of topics in environmental sociology, including new material on consumption, agricultural
In For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America, Ashwood provides an assessment of how for-profit partnerships between government and corporations can have damaging effects on rural Americans. In the process, she reveals why government distrust is high, especially in rural parts of the United States. According to Ashwood, the primary problem lies with corporations and government acting in similar ways and in collaboration to dispossess rural people of their chances for prosperity and even at times their property. “The sanctity of human life and choices fades from view as profit gains prominence, and rural places are labeled externalities and write-offs for dangerous and risky industrial projects,” Ashwood writes in the preface to For-Profit Democracy, going on to note that the book examines “how the courts came to value profit and industrialization as the ultimate purpose of property. The rights of those with different reasons for ownership—such as subsistence, family viability, and household economy—are left with little legal standing.” As a result, writes Ashwood, the state is “complicit in the process of dispossessing the many in the favor of the few.”
Ashwood conducted four years of fieldwork as the basis for For-Profit Democracy. Initially, she was focusing on how residents of rural America deal with the risks associated with nearby nuclear reactors. However, as she interviewed people, she realized that she had come upon an even broader topic related to distrust of the government. “The first thing that impacted me was that everyone wanted to talk about how their land was being taken from them,” Ashwood told State News Service contributor Paul Hollis, adding: “Perhaps it sounds very naive in retrospect, but I never considered that eminent domain or the threat of it would be used to take their property, at least not to the extent that it was happening to these people.”
Ashwood relocated to Burke County, a rural county in Georgia, as she sought to investigate why rural populations especially were growing increasingly distrustful of the government. Burke County hosts a mixed-race Georgia community that served as the site for the first nuclear power reactors sanctioned by the government in three decades. The residents of the extremely poor Burke County found some of their property taken by for-profit companies that own the reactors located at the Vogtle Power Plant. Furthermore, the companies ended up polluting the area and negatively impacting natural resources. Pointing to the companies’ ability to avoid paying county taxes via a loophole, Ashwood writes that the situation clearly demonstrates what she calls the “public-private fallacy” that places individual ownership and needs second to corporate needs and benefits.
According to Ashwood, in the United States profit has come to drive policy. Via interviews with more than eighty people in the rural Georgia county, Ashwood clearly reveals how eminent domain and other factors, such as the idea that government policy is often based on doing what produces the most money for the most people, have negatively impacted peoples’ lives. She also points out that the prioritization of corporate over individual needs is not a new phenomenon but has been going on for many years, especially in terms of privatization and industrialization in rural parts of the country. Ashwood places a special focus on William Gresham and Lela Roberts, both residents of the county who have used civil disobedience as a way to oppose the idea of for-profit democracy and reclaim the land for its original use. A Publishers Weekly contributor called For-Profit Democracy “an accessible exploration of how government affects and is perceived by rural Americans.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Ashwood, Loka, For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2018.
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, May 7, 2018, review of For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America. p. 59.
States News Service, September 11, 2018, “Auburn College of Agriculture Author Chronicles Rural Distrust of Government in New Book.”
ONLINE
Loka Ashwood website, http://lokaashwood.com (October 14, 2018).
About Me
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology at Auburn University.
I am a sociologist who studies the relationships between people and their environmental surroundings, with the politics of justice weaving a common thread across my work. I often work with communities to counter pollution and inequality. I turn to theory and history to understand the larger structures that shape injustices.
Current Work
My forthcoming book studies the impact of profit motives on environmental problems and democracy in Burke County, Georgia, where two nuclear reactors are currently under construction.
I am currently working on projects on storms and climate change, farming laws, and landownership.
Research Methods
Participant Ethnography
I learn about society-environment relations by living in the place I am studying.
Interviews
I spend a large amount of my time interviewing people and discussing their lives and communities.
History & Policy
I connect what I’ve observed and heard about with historical sources of information like land records, legal proceeding, and news reports.
Teaching
I have taught a variety of courses that relate to environmental sociology and political theory, such as
Community Organization
Environment, Justice, and Society
Classical Sociological Theory
American Political Theory and the Rise of Neoliberalism
Sociology of Development
Learn More
To learn more about me, visit the Recent Releases and Publications pages. You can also download my Curriculum Vitae.
1
Updated April 20181LOKA ASHWOODCURRICULUM VITAEAssistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural SociologyAuburn University, 310 Comer Hall, Auburn AL 36849334-844-4953 (Office); lla0008@auburn.eduEDUCATION2015Ph.D., Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.2009M.Litt., Geography, National University of Ireland, Galway. First Class Honors.2007B.S., Journalism and Political Science, Northwestern University. ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT2015 -Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Auburn University.HONORS, AWARDS, AND FELLOWSHIPSExternal2015Best Paper Award. Rural Sociology, L. Ashwood, N. Harden, M. Bell, and W. Bland. University of California-Davis Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellowship. Declined. United States Department of Agriculture. National Institute for Food and Agriculture Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant. $146,910. Declined. 2014Honorable Mention, Ford FoundationDissertation Fellowship.2011Philanthropic Educational Organization Scholar Award, $15,000. Co-Winner of Society for Agriculture, Human Values, and Society (AHVS) Graduate Student Paper Competition: Harden, N. and L. Ashwood.Co-Winner of International Symposium on Society and Natural ResourcesDoctoral Student Paper Competition: Harden, N. and L. Ashwood.2009Winner of 2009 European Society for Rural Sociology Fred Buttel Award: Best graduate student paper.
Updated April 20182Internal2014University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Letters and Science Early Teaching Excellence Award.2014Mellon-Wisconsin Summer Fellowship. Raymond J. Penn Scholarship for Research in Development, Resource Conservation, and Environmental Conservation. PUBLICATIONSBooks2018Ashwood, L.For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government is Losing the Trust of Rural America.Yale University Press. 2016Bell, M. M. and L. Ashwood. An Invitation to Environmental Sociology. 5thEdition. Thousand Oaks, California: Pine Forge Press.Special Issue Editor/Introduction2016Journal of Rural Studies, Special Issue “Rural as a Dimension of Environmental Injustice.” Volume 76 A. Co-editorwith Kate MacTavish. 2016Ashwood, L. and Kate MacTavish. 2016. “Tyranny of the Majority and Rural Environmental Injustice.” Journal of Rural Studies 74(A): 271-277.Peer-Reviewed Journal ArticlesForthcomingAshwood, L. “Rural Conservatism or Anarchism?The Pro-State, Stateless and Anti-State Positions.”Rural Sociology. 2017Ashwood, L. and M.M. Bell. “Affect and Taste: Bourdieu, Traditional Music, and the Performance of Possibilities.” Sociologia Ruralis 57(S1): 622-640.2016Ashwood, L. and Steve Wing. “Exposure and Compensation for Nuclear Weapons Workers.”New Solutions 26(1):55-71.2014Ashwood, L., N. Harden, M. M. Bell, and W. Bland. “Linked and Situated: Grounded Knowledge.” Rural Sociology79(4):427-452.•Rural Sociology 2015 Best Paper Award•Lead Article.
quote from preface, pg. X
For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America
Publishers Weekly. 265.19 (May 7, 2018): p59.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America
Loka Ashwood. Yale Univ., $40 (328p) ISBN 978-0-300-21535-9
Auburn University agricultural economist and sociologist Ashwood relocated to rural Burke County, Ga., to better understand the growing distrust between the government and rural populations for this thought-provoking investigation. She chose the location because the extremely poor county is home to the first new nuclear power plant built in the U.S. in decades, and the process by which the for-profit companies that own the plants took the land of poor disenfranchised residents, polluted and eroded the country's natural resources, then found a loophole to avoid paying much-needed taxes to the county, illustrates what she refers to as the "public-private fallacy" that prioritizes benefits to corporations over those of individuals, leading to a system in which profit creation drives policy. While this sounds like a relatively academic concept, the work itself is character-driven, affecting, and philosophical. Recounting many of the interviews she conducted with more than 80 people, Ashwood successfully illustrates the human impact of eminent domain and abstract-seeming ideas such as what she terms "the rule of numbers." She argues that a centuries-old preference for privatization and industrialization in places like Burke County has germinated loss of faith in the government, and highlights the stories of Burke County residents William Gresham and Lela Roberts, who oppose the for-profit democracy ethos through civil disobedience--for instance, treating the land now owned by the plants as though they still belong to the locals--and religion. A more intellectual cousin to recent cultural soul-searching works like J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy, this is an accessible exploration of how government affects and is perceived by rural Americans. June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America." Publishers Weekly, 7 May 2018, p. 59. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A538858719/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d256d754. Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A538858719
AUBURN COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AUTHOR CHRONICLES RURAL DISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT IN NEW BOOK
States News Service. (Sept. 11, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 States News Service
Full Text:
AUBURN, Ala. -- The following information was released by Auburn University:
Paul Hollis
What began as a dissertation proposal exploring how rural people deal with the risk of living near nuclear reactors evolved over time into a compelling story that is being compared to a recent New York Times best-seller."I understood, as I met the people, that it was going to become more character-driven," Loka Ashwood says of her recently published book, For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America. "Their words were so powerful, and the ways in which they spoke. I wanted to elevate that to a larger scale."
The people she refers to are the residents of Burke County, Georgia, one of the poorest counties in the nation and home to Vogtle Power Plant, host of the first new nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in decades.
Ashwood, who is an assistant professor in the Auburn University College of Agriculture's Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, lived among and befriended some of the people of rural Burke County for four years while conducting research for the book that Publishers Weekly has compared to The New York Times No. 1 best-seller Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance.
Published by Yale University Press and released on June 26, Ashwood's 328-page book offers a sociological assessment of the damaging effects of the for-profit partnership between government and corporations on rural Americans.
Drawing on her background as a journalist, she uses the personal stories of the people of Burke Countygleaned from 89 interviewsto intertwine current hot-button issues such as racial discrimination, religion, gun rights and economic inequality with an exhaustive study on how for-profit democracy shapes power and politics in rural America.
Ashwood was captivated by the Burke County site because it was the only location at the time where ground was being broken on new nuclear reactor construction."I initially set out to discover whether or not the local people liked having a nuclear power plant as a neighbor," she said. "But the first thing that impacted me was that everyone wanted to talk about how their land was being taken from them. Perhaps it sounds very nave in retrospect, but I never considered that eminent domain or the threat of it would be used to take their property, at least not to the extent that it was happening to these people."
In her search to find out how citizens' land could be forcibly taken, Ashwood discovered the growing for-profit orientations of democracy."Like many Americans, I thought there was no way your land could be taken in such a way, so I wanted to learn how a for-profit company could claim land that initially belonged to a private property owner," she said. "That's where I started this deeper search, delving into the history of corporations and land takings and the history of property ownership in the South, in Burke County and in Georgia. That's what led to this idea of for-profit democracy.'"
Ashwood's definition of for-profit democracy is two-fold."It goes back to the state, and when it decides what is best for the people based on what makes the most money for the most people who rule," she said. "That's damaging to people in two ways. If you say that the purpose of democracy is to serve the most people, then anyone in a minority is vulnerable, and rural people are constantly in a minority."
Also, U.S. Supreme Court rulings are continuously building up the rights of for-profit corporations, she said."This goes back centuries in the United States," Ashwood said. "It means that if you make more revenue, and you offer more tax dollars, you are going to hold the greatest and the most rights, regardless of other costs."
She also explains it as the "rule of numbers"the most money or the most people."I find that it has very damaging consequences for people's faith in the government, especially rural people because they get hit in both directions," she said. "Even if you have more money and are in a rural area, people's rights are more susceptible. While they are not necessarily a racial minority, they are a rural minority."
Ashwood grew up on a family farm in Illinois, which gave her credibility to the people in rural east Georgia, along with an innate empathy for those fighting to save their land."I understand the multigenerational attachment," she said. "But some in Burke County saw neighboring farmers as aristocrats, so to speak, who were benefitting from government subsidies. I had to look into the mirror before I questioned some of my subjectsthey helped to push me."
Ashwood's rural background also helped in gaining the trust of people in the black community."They understood that I at least knew what they were talking about, and that I knew the meaning of the land," she said. "I knew their history, and I wasn't afraid to go out into certain areas. They trusted that I wouldn't be disgusted or judgmental about the level of poverty I was witnessing. In most rural areas, people have less money and fewer services, so I was accustomed to that."
Burke County is classified as a "persistent poverty" county, with more than 20 percent of the people living in poverty for more than three decades. Some of the people interviewed by Ashwood were living in trailers without electricity or running water."My No. 1 motivation for writing this book was to help the people of Burke County," she said. "I had hoped that maybe I could bridge the divide and help people talk with one another."Maybe if they all could come together and demand that the government stop taking their land, then it could collapse some of the racial issues we now have in this country of white versus black. If people could discover their shared issues, maybe they could put a stop to the seizing of their land."
A second motivation for the book, Ashwood said, was to try and discover why rural people are getting poorer, more disenfranchised and more against the government on a national scale."We don't hear this being discussed much in the popular media or even in conversation," she said. "We hear a lot of generalizations about rural people being uneducated or being politically radical. I wanted to help people understand the broader processes that could help make anyone become vulnerable, or make anyone the next minority."What's happening in rural America also could occur and already is occurring in urban places. We can use these broader concepts to make change and inspire change, and that's why I tried to write it accessibly."
Her biggest challenge in writing the book was showing respect to all the people of Burke while being honest with the reader, Ashwood said."Selecting certain quotes to be included proved to be very difficult," she said. "There are racially charged quotes in the book, but they are quotes of what people actually said. I knew some of the families who read it would not be happy, and one family wasn't. It's especially difficult because I grew to like these people and built relationships with them."As a journalist, your job is not to be the morally corrective force but to report what is said."
Ashwood feels the relevance of the book's subject matter has only grown since she began working on it."Rural politics matter," she said. "Some of the issues I address in the book are more controversial now than ever before. The chapter on racial animosity is a realistic message that is more relevant than ever, and we can actually make change if we reduce corporate power and elevate individual human rights. We could do that right now and help regain trust in the American government."
Ashwood will be speaking about her book at the Auburn University Discover Auburn Lecture Series on Sept. 20 at 3 p.m. This yearlong series features programs on Auburn University research, history and other topics of interest. The series is co-sponsored by the Auburn University Libraries, the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities and the Auburn University Bookstore. Lectures are held in the Special Collections Department of the Ralph Brown Draughon Library.
She also will join such authors as Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg and Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor at the 30th Annual Southern Festival of Books to be held Oct. 12-14 at the War Memorial Plaza and the Nashville Public Library downtown.
The book is available from Amazon and other booksellers.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"AUBURN COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AUTHOR CHRONICLES RURAL DISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT IN NEW BOOK." States News Service, 11 Sept. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A554361947/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=50b8c34c. Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A554361947