Building Something Better

STEPHANIE A. MALIN is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. She is the author of The Price of Nuclear Power: Uranium Communities and Environmental Justice (Rutgers University Press) and a co-founder and co-director of the Center for Environmental Justice at CSU.  MEGHAN ELIZABETH KALLMAN is an assistant professor at the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development and is affiliated faculty in the Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She is the author of The Death of Idealism: Development and Anti-Politics in the Peace Corps and is a State Senator in Rhode Island.

"In Building Something Better, Malin and Kallman provide a sophisticated and nuanced explanation of the persistent and inequitable nature of environmental crises, and they introduce us to a compelling array of social movements working to create more just, sustainable communities." - Jill Harrison (author of From the Inside Out: The Fight for Environmental Justice within Government Agencies) "This brave volume posits an environmental sociology that stands in for all of sociology to press for collective well-being. The authors support those who bridge the gap between scholarship and activism, and their wonderful case studies of community activism, many involving Indigenous people, merge the gritty world of organizing and with the thoughtful ideas of social science. It’s a delight to read and an important vehicle for change."- Phil Brown (Northeastern University) "Especially timely and germane in light of today's political, cultural, and environmental driven instabilities, Building Something Better: Environmental Crises and the Promise of Community Change is a seminal, informative, and accessibly organized and presented study that is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, college, and university library environmental economic policy collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists."- John Taylor (Midwest Book Review)

• Part I: Where We’re At And Why1 Introduction2 A People’s Sociology3 Failing People and the Planet: Neoliberal Economics and the Erasure of DifferencePart II: Building Better Worlds4 Human Beings, Not Humans Buying: Trends in Modern Environmentalism, and How Communities Are Reimagining Collectives5 Democratizing the Commons by Building Communities6 More than the Market: Practicing Social and Ecological Regeneration7 Conclusion: Building Something BetterAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex