@article{cutts_vila_bray_harris_hornsby_goins_mclean_crites_allen_mcmenamin_et al._2024, title={Shifting terrains: Understanding residential contaminants after flood disasters}, volume={907}, ISSN={["1879-1026"]}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167577}, DOI={10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167577}, abstractNote={Flood disasters can induce the mass transport of soils and sediments. This has the potential to distribute contaminants and present novel combinations to new locations - including residential neighborhoods. Even when soil contaminants cannot be directly attributed to the disaster, data on bacterial and heavy metal(loids) can facilitate an environmentally just recovery by enabling reconstruction decisions that fill data gaps to minimize future exposure. These data-gathering interventions may be especially useful in poor, rural, and racially diverse communities where there is a high probability of exposure to multiple hazards and a potential dependency on the financial resources of disaster aid as a means of reducing chronic exposures to other environmental pollutants. At the same time, entering these post-disasters spaces is ethically complex. To acknowledge this complexity, we pilot a framework for work that gathers social-ecological hazard information while retaining a fair-minded approach to transdisciplinary work. Assembled a transdisciplinary team to recruit participants from 90 households subjected to flooding in the southeastern US. Participating households agreed to interviews to elicit flood experience and environmental health concerns, soil sampling for fecal bacteria (E. coli) and soil sampling for selected heavy metals and metalloids (Pb, As, Cd) at their flooded residence. Soil sampling found a wide range of E. coli concentrations in soil (0.4-1115.7 CFU/ dry gram). Heavy metal(loid)s were detected at most residences (As 97.9 %; Ca 25.5 %; Pb 100 %). Individually, heavy metal(loid) concentrations did not exceed regulatory thresholds. Hazard, risk, and mitigation concerns expressed during interviews reveal that integrated human-nature concepts complicate common understandings of how hazard perceptibility (smell, sight, touch, and information) affects research-action spaces. Qualitative analysis of interviews and field notes revealed that soil-related hazards addressed by our biophysical protocols were less salient than changes with direct causal associations with flooding. We conclude by discussing the potential for the social-ecological hazard information that is fair-minded and transdisciplinary (SHIFT) framework to advance environmentally just approaches to research-action spaces after disasters.}, journal={SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT}, author={Cutts, Bethany B. and Vila, Olivia and Bray, Laura A. and Harris, Angela and Hornsby, Gracie and Goins, Hannah and McLean, Sallie and Crites, Margaret and Allen, Angela and McMenamin, Nathan and et al.}, year={2024}, month={Jan} }
 @article{beckham_cutts_rivers iii_dello_bray_villa_2023, title={BRIDGE Builders - Leadership and social capital in disaster recovery governance}, volume={96}, ISSN={["2212-4209"]}, DOI={10.1016/j.ijdrr.2023.103942}, abstractNote={Rural disaster recovery governance focuses on the actions that governments take to address the immediate economic, environmental, and infrastructure needs of communities, but does not consider the structural limitations of rural communities, or the transformational power of community leadership. Applying knowledge of community leadership, governance, and social capital in a rural community where social relationships and local-level leadership are central to external interactions provides space to understand the challenges, opportunities, and limitations of disaster recovery governance and leadership systems. To do this, we conduct a secondary thematic analysis of 30 interviews of 32 disaster recovery leaders in Robeson County, NC (USA) following the compound disasters of hurricanes Matthew (2016) and Florence (2018). Participants describe a recovery landscape that relies on Community Organizers - non-titular rural community members who emerge in response to communities' immediate recovery and resource needs. Social capital acts as a resource for Community Organizers as they work to fill the relational and recognition barriers presented by isolation from overextended rural governments. Community Organizers utilize linking and bridging social capital between Decision-Makers and communities to influence transformational change that engenders trans-scaler social capital to create successful recovery outcomes that adequately represent the needs, values, and norms of rural communities. Community-level leaders can serve as a bridge between communities and Decision-Makers, generating effective outcomes that foster collaboration and reciprocity for the next storm.}, journal={INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DISASTER RISK REDUCTION}, author={Beckham, Tira L. and Cutts, Bethany B. and Rivers III, Louie Rivers and Dello, Kathie and Bray, Laura A. and Villa, Olivia}, year={2023}, month={Oct} }
 @article{bray_membrez-weiler_shriver_2022, title={Agrochemical Exposure & Environmental Illness: Legal Repression of Latin American Banana Workers}, volume={63}, ISSN={["1533-8525"]}, DOI={10.1080/00380253.2020.1841585}, abstractNote={ABSTRACT Prior research on legal repression shows how elites use criminal law to demobilize collective challenges, yet social control efforts based in civil law have received inadequate attention. In this study, we develop the concept of elite legal framing to examine how corporations deploy “soft” forms of repression within the civil justice system. Drawing on court, government, and media documents, we analyze a series of transnational civil litigation cases over pesticide exposure on Dole-contracted banana plantations in Nicaragua. Results highlight how the corporate defendants promoted a corruption narrative that diffused through the media and legal system to successfully discredit farmworker claims.}, number={2}, journal={SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY}, author={Bray, Laura A. and Membrez-Weiler, Nicholas J. and Shriver, Thomas E.}, year={2022}, month={Apr}, pages={359–378} }
 @article{shriver_bray_wilcox_szabo_2021, title={Human Rights and Dissent in Hybrid Environments: The Impact of Shifting Rights Regimes}, volume={63}, ISSN={0038-0253 1533-8525}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2021.1909444}, DOI={10.1080/00380253.2021.1909444}, abstractNote={ABSTRACT Research indicates that social movements are shaped by increased opportunities and threats, yet this work rarely examines environments of intersecting opportunity and threat. This article extends the literature on political opportunity theory by explaining how shifting rights regimes influence the political context of movements. Specifically, we analyze how dissent in Communist Czechoslovakia responded to the expansion and contraction of rights across three political periods between 1948 and 1977. Our research delineates three key features of rights regimes and shows how variation across multiple scales creates “hybrid environments” of political opportunity and threat for social movements.}, number={3}, journal={The Sociological Quarterly}, publisher={Informa UK Limited}, author={Shriver, Thomas E. and Bray, Laura A. and Wilcox, Annika and Szabo, Adriana}, year={2021}, month={Apr}, pages={541–561} }
 @article{bray_2021, title={Settler Colonialism and Rural Environmental Injustice: Water Inequality on the Navajo Nation*}, volume={86}, ISSN={["1549-0831"]}, DOI={10.1111/ruso.12366}, abstractNote={Abstract}, number={3}, journal={RURAL SOCIOLOGY}, author={Bray, Laura A.}, year={2021}, month={Sep}, pages={586–610} }
 @article{shriver_wilcox_bray_2020, title={Elite Cultural Work and Discursive Obstruction of Human Rights Activism}, volume={7}, ISSN={["2329-4973"]}, DOI={10.1177/2329496519870554}, abstractNote={When challenged, states frequently respond with discursive campaigns meant to undercut the legitimacy of social movements. However, we know little about how the social and cultural status of challengers affects the state’s discursive response. We address this gap by analyzing an important historical case of human rights activism in Communist Czechoslovakia. Despite its long history of violence and repression, Czechoslovakia signed several international human rights covenants during the 1970s to improve its reputation. A group of citizens that included well-known political, social, and cultural figures soon formed a domestic movement for human rights known as Charter 77. Drawing on state media articles, we analyze the state’s public response to Charter 77. Results highlight four discursive strategies through which the state sought to undermine the cultural legitimacy of the movement: vilification through character assaults, message distortion that constructed activists as enemies of socialism, symbolic amplification of socialist values, and the co-optation of culturally valued identities to speak as state proxies. By further developing the concept of discursive obstruction, we show how the state navigated the complex cultural field in its effort to suppress high-profile human rights activists.}, number={1}, journal={SOCIAL CURRENTS}, author={Shriver, Thomas E. and Wilcox, Annika and Bray, Laura A.}, year={2020}, month={Feb}, pages={11–28} }
 @article{shriver_szabo_bray_2020, title={Opportunity and threat behind the Iron Curtain: The failed diffusion of human rights activism in Romania}, volume={35}, ISSN={["1461-7242"]}, url={https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580920928925}, DOI={10.1177/0268580920928925}, abstractNote={ Research has highlighted the importance of diffusion processes for the emergence and spread of collective action, yet less attention has been paid to cases where diffusion fails to lead to successful campaigns. This article analyzes an instance of failed movement diffusion to explicate how proximate episodes of contention interact with domestic configurations of opportunity and threat. The authors draw on a failed human rights campaign in communist Romania. In the mid-1970s, several Eastern bloc nations signed international human rights covenants to improve international relations, unintentionally sparking dissident movements across the region. Activists in Romania sought to emulate Czechoslovakia’s dissident movement, Charter 77. But despite the success of its model, the Romanian campaign failed to materialize. This article analyzes the movement and finds that the failed diffusion resulted from a combination of limited structural opportunities at the domestic level, weak perceptions of collective efficacy, and the state’s use of flexible repression strategies. }, number={6}, journal={INTERNATIONAL SOCIOLOGY}, author={Shriver, Thomas E. and Szabo, Adriana M. and Bray, Laura A.}, year={2020}, month={Nov}, pages={739–757} }
 @article{adams_shriver_bray_messer_2020, title={Petrochemical Pollution and the Suppression of Environmental Protest}, volume={90}, ISSN={["1475-682X"]}, DOI={10.1111/soin.12321}, abstractNote={While research has established how elite actors can work to protect structures that contribute to environmental harm, relatively less is known about the cultural resources that can serve elite interests at the local level. In cases of localized pollution, multiple groups have vested interests in protecting corporate legitimacy. We draw on treadmill of production theory and collective identity to analyze a case of community petrochemical contamination. Specifically, we asked: (1) how elite actors appropriated cultural resources to protect productivity following a legitimization crisis; and (2) how discursive retaliation matters in understanding the pathways to violence when protest threatens an industrial community's economic identity. Our data for this research included in‐depth interviews, newspaper coverage, and archival data. Findings indicate that the corporation, the city, and corporate employees responded to local environmental activism with a discursive campaign that ultimately paved the way for widespread threats and retaliation against the residents. This research highlights the ways in which local proponents of the energy industry can take advantage of cultural resources to suppress challengers to the industry.}, number={3}, journal={SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY}, author={Adams, Alison E. and Shriver, Thomas E. and Bray, Laura A. and Messer, Chris M.}, year={2020}, month={Aug}, pages={646–668} }
 @article{bray_shriver_adams_2019, title={Mobilizing Grievances in an Authoritarian Setting: Threat and Emotion in the 1953 Plzen Uprising}, volume={62}, ISSN={["1533-8673"]}, DOI={10.1177/0731121418791771}, abstractNote={Material and physical threat can play a crucial role in the emergence of protest, yet few studies have explored the micro-level mechanisms that transform threat into collective action under repressive conditions. We address this gap by connecting the mobilizing power of grievances to the emotional dynamics of collective action in the context of a 1953 uprising in Communist Czechoslovakia. Following economic reforms that wiped out citizens’ savings, several thousand workers in the industrial city of Plzeň took to the streets in protest. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews, our analysis shows how structural and incidental grievances can become a mobilizing force for high-risk activism. We find that the class position of protesters influenced their preexisting affective state and reactive response to the reform. As a result, class background helped to shape protesters’ motivations, actions, and goals. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future research.}, number={1}, journal={SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES}, author={Bray, Laura A. and Shriver, Thomas E. and Adams, Alison E.}, year={2019}, month={Feb}, pages={77–95} }
 @article{shriver_adams_bray_2019, title={Political Power and Manufacturing Consent: The Case of the 1953 Plzen Protests}, volume={60}, ISSN={["1533-8525"]}, DOI={10.1080/00380253.2018.1526046}, abstractNote={ABSTRACT Extant research has investigated the relationship between the powerful and the powerless in a variety of contexts. Understanding the processes undergirding political power is critical to uncovering subtle social control mechanisms, specifically as they contribute to public consent and quiescence. We draw on the case of protest in Communist Czechoslovakia to investigate the mechanisms elites employ to protect their legitimacy. Data include governmental and court archives, first and secondhand accounts, and in-depth interviews. Our findings provide a foundation for conceptualizing political power as a multidimensional interplay, and adds conceptual distinction between consent and quiescence as goals of political rule.}, number={1}, journal={SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY}, author={Shriver, Thomas E. and Adams, Alison E. and Bray, Laura A.}, year={2019}, pages={26–45} }