The RENEW Institute - A Multidisciplinary Initiative
James R. Elliott
James Elliott is the Chair of the Sociology Department at Rice University. He is a Faculty Affiliate of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research and former advisor to the National Science Foundation’s program in Sociology.
James (Jim) Elliott earned his Ph.D. in Sociology (with a minor in Geography) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997. Thereafter Dr. Elliott was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before coming to Rice he earned tenure at the University of Oregon and Tulane University, where he received presidential awards for his undergraduate, graduate and service-learning teaching.
Dr. Elliott’s research focuses on the social production of inequalities and environmental hazards. Early work examined how globalization contributes to structural underemployment; how neighborhood segregation shapes job networks and opportunities; how ethnic divisions of labor form and persist over time; and, how race and gender intersect to open and close access to workplace power in diverse urban labor markets. More recent research focuses on social inequities revealed and exacerbated by natural hazards and government-led recoveries as well as the historical accumulation and systemic spread of industrial hazards. He has served as editor of the journal, Sociological Perspectives. >>Learn more about Dr. Elliot.
"How and Why Social Inequalities Matter for Climate Resilience"
Despite their global nature, climate change and related hazards are not things we experience “together.” Rather they reveal and exacerbate so-cial inequities that call for recognition and scientific investigation to ad-vance a more just and equitable future. Universities can be leaders in this advancement but only if they match prowess in engineering and natural sciences with equally cutting-edge social and humanistic re-search. To support that effort, this talk will review the concept of resili-ence in the social sciences. It will then spotlight recent findings on so-cial inequities in successive phases of disaster response before diving more deeply into current NSF-funded research on residential retreat as a long-term strategy of climate adaptation.
Hosted by the Department of Sociology
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Talk: 12:00 pm
Reception: 1:00 pm
Location: 509 O’Brian Hall, North Campus