Biographical note

Michael Mayerfeld Bell is Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For his day job, he is principally an environmental sociologist and a social theorist, focusing on dialogics, the sociology of nature, and social justice. These concerns for the world have led him to studies of agroecology, the body, community, consumption, culture, development, food, democracy, economic sociology, gender, inequality, participation, place, politics, rurality, the sociology of music, and more. He is also a part-time composer of grassroots and classical music, and a mandolinist, guitarist, and singer. Loka Ashwood is an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky in the Department of Sociology. She theorizes about democracy, the environment, and social action to pinpoint points of aggravation and openings for change. She analyzes specific corporate and regulatory structures that undergird dispossession of property and community in rural places. She works with people to explore creative pathways forward amid intense distrust and government neglect. Learn more at www.lokaashwood.com.