Dr. Patricia Widener

Background

Patricia Widener is a professor of sociology and the author of two books: Toxic & Intoxicating Oil: Discovery, Resistance, and Justice in Aotearoa New Zealand (2021) and Oil Injustice: Resisting and Conceding a Pipeline in Ecuador (2011). She conducts allied ethnographic research and studies how communities and climate and environmental groups mobilize in response to oil proposals, tourism, and disasters. She examines community and oil industry conflicts through the perspectives of climate, marine, and environmental justice, political economy, social movements, extractive tourism, and visual sociology. Currently, she is analyzing data collected during dozens of protests and rallies in Southeast Florida both for and against national policies and rhetoric. She is also beginning a new project on marine justice, marine sociology, and the unique experiences of coastal and island communities.

Professor Widener teaches courses on social movements, environmental sociology, tourism, poverty, and climate and disaster. She works with graduate and undergraduate students on independent research projects and publishes with them on local climate change experiences. She frequently invites students to join her at various community and data-gathering events on issues related to the environment and climate change.

Monographs

Widener, P. 2021. Toxic and Intoxicating Oil: Discovery, Resistance, and Justice in Aotearoa New Zealand. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Widener, P. 2011. Oil Injustice: Resisting and Conceding a Pipeline in Ecuador. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Widener, P. 2024. “Conceptualizing the City through Photovoice.” Teaching and Learning Anthropology 7(1): 178-184.

Mullen, Casey and P. Widener. 2022. “Dissonance between Framing and Acting for Climate Justice.” Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. 27(5): 586-604.

Widener, P. 2022. “Energy & Export Transitions: From Oil Exports to Renewable Energy Goals in Aotearoa New Zealand.” Pp 91-104 in Public Responses to Fossil Fuel Export: Exporting Energy and Emissions in a Time of Transition, edited by Hilary Boudet and Shawn Olson Hazboun. Elsevier.

Widener, P. 2020. “The Visual Opportunity Spaces of Oil: In Promotion, Protest, and Warning.” Visual Studies.

Widener, P. 2018. “National Discovery and Citizen Experts in Aotearoa New Zealand: Local and Global Narratives of Hydraulic Fracturing.” Extractive Industries & Society 5(4): 515-523.

Widener, P. 2018. “Coastal People Dispute Offshore Oil Exploration: Toward a Study of Embedded Seascapes, Submersible Knowledge, Sacrifice, and Marine Justice.” Environmental Sociology 4(4): 405-418.

Widener, P. and Carmen Rowe. 2018. “Climate Discourse: Eluding Literacy, Justice and Inclusion, By Evading Causation, Privilege and Diversity.” Environmental Sociology 4(1): 162-174.

Widener, P. 2018. “Citizens in Resistance to Oil Development and Acid Fracking in the Sunshine State.” Pp. 224-247 in Fractured Communities: Risk, Impacts, and Protest against Hydraulic Fracking in US Shale Regions, edited by Anthony Ladd. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Karides, Marina and P. Widener. 2018. “Race, Class, Privilege and Bias in South Florida Food Movement.” Pp. 191-203 in Food & Poverty: Food Insecurity and Food Sovereignty among America’s Poor, edited by Leslie Hossfeld, E. Brooke Kelly, and Julia Waity. Nashville TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Widener, P. 2016. “E-Fears, E-Risks and Citizen-Intelligence: The Impacts of Surveillance on Resistance and Research.” Surveillance & Society 14(2): 277-285.

Widener, P., Carmen Rowe, Ana Marie Estrada, Marcella Ahumada, Martha Eichloff and Jacquelyn Anderson. 2016. “Climate Action and Literacy through Creativity and Conversations.” Pp. 125-138 in Systemic Crises of Global Climate Change: Intersections of Race, Class and Gender, edited by Phoebe Godfrey and Denise Torres. NY: Routledge.

Widener, P. and Marina Karides. 2014. “Food System Literacy: Empowering Citizens and Consumers beyond Farm-to-Fork Pathways.” Food, Culture & Society 17(4): 665-687.

Widener, P. 2013. “A Protracted Age of Oil: Pipelines, Refineries and Quiet Conflict.” Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 18(7): 834-851.

Widener, P. 2009. “Oil Tourism: Disasters and Destinations in Ecuador and the Philippines.” Sociological Inquiry 79(3): 266-288.

Widener, P. 2009. “Global Links and Environmental Flows: Oil Disputes in Ecuador.” Global Environmental Politics 9(1): 31-57.

Widener, P. 2007. “Benefits and Burdens of Transnational Campaigns: A Comparison of Four Oil Struggles in Ecuador.” Mobilization: An International Quarterly 12(1): 21-36.

Widener, P. and Valerie Gunter. 2007. “Oil Spill Recovery in the Media: Missing an Alaska Native Perspective.” Society and Natural Resources 20(9): 767-783.

Widener, P. 2007. “Oil Conflict in Ecuador: A Photographic Essay.” Organization & Environment 20(1): 84-105.