Email: A.A.Mah@warwick.ac.uk 

Room: E0.21a

Telephone: +44 (0) 2476 522205

Profile

Alice Mah is Professor of Sociology and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council (ERC)-funded project Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry (2015-2020). She holds a PhD in Sociology from the London School of Economics. Her internationally recognized research on industrial ruination, post-industrial port cities, corporate social responsibility, and environmental justice have been motivated by a deep concern with social inequalities, across different dimensions and scales. She has conducted comparative, mixed-method sociological research in the UK, France, Belgium, Russia, China, the US, and Canada.

Alice is the author of Port Cities and Global Legacies (2014, Palgrave Macmillan) and Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place (2012, University of Toronto Press), winner of the 2013 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. Her most recent book, edited with Thom Davies, is Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post-Truth Age (2020, University of Manchester Press).

Alice is also founder and co-editor of Toxic News, a quarterly e-magazine about toxics in everyday life.

Current Research Projects

• Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry - Principal Investigator, European Research Council Starting Grant
• Global Environmental Injustice- funded by the Philip Leverhulme Prize
• Deindustrialization and the Politics of our Time- Co-Investigator, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Partnership Grant (PI Steven High)

Prizes

2017 Philip Leverhulme Prize in Sociology

2015 Sage Prize for Innovation and/or Excellence for "The Dereliction Tourist" in Sociological Research Online

2013. Philip Abrams Memorial Prize, British Sociological Association, for the best first and sole-authored monograph in Sociology (Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place)

Media

• Virtual Blue COP Webinar on Plastics Pollution and Oceanic Change, 7 Dec 2019
• Interview about port cities research on BBC Radio 4 'Thinking Allowed', 3 Dec 2014
• Interview about industrial ruination on BBC Radio 4 'Thinking Allowed', 27 March 2013
• British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2013 interview, April 2013

Selected Publications

Books

• Mah, A. (2014) Port Cities and Global Legacies: Urban Identity, Waterfront Work, and Radicalism, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Download sample chapter here.
• Mah, A. (2012) Industrial Ruination, Community and Place: Landscapes and Legacies of Urban Decline, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. *Winner of the 2013 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize.* Download introduction here.

Edited Books

• Davies, T. and A. Mah. (eds) (2020) Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post-Truth Age, Manchester: University of Manchester Press. Available open access (from July 2020)
• Behal, R., A. Mah, and B. Fall. (2011) Rethinking Work: Global Historical and Sociological Perspectives, Delhi and Berlin: Tulika Books and Humboldt University.

Journal Articles

• Verbeek, T. and A. Mah (forthcoming). 'Integration and Isolation in the Global Petrochemical Industry: A Multiscalar Corporate Network Analysis' Economic Geography, accepted 16 June 2020.
• Jephcote, C, D. Brown, T. Verbeek, and A. Mah. (2020). 'A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Haematological Malignancies in Residents Living Near Petrochemical Facilities' Environmental Health 19(53): https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-020-00582-1
• Mah, A. and X. Wang (2019) 'Accumulated Injuries of Environmental Injustice: Living and Working with Petrochemical Pollution in Nanjing, China.' Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 109(6): 1961-1977 https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2019.1574551.
• Jephcote, C. and A. Mah. (2019) “Regional Inequalities in Benzene Exposures across the European Petrochemical Industry: A Bayesian Multilevel Modelling Approach.” Environment International 132 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.05.006
• Mah, A. and X. Wang (2017) ‘Research on Environmental Justice in China: Limitations and Possibilities.’ Chinese Journal of Environmental Law 263-272.
• Mah, A. (2017) 'Environmental Justice in the Age of Big Data: Challenging Toxic Blind Spots of Voice, Speed, and Expertise' Environmental Sociology 3 (2): 122-133. Available Open Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2016.1220849
• Mah, A. (2014) 'The Dereliction Tourist: Ethical Issues of Conducting Research in Areas of Industrial Ruination,' Sociological Research Online 19 (4), 13 http://www.socresonline.org.uk/19/4/13.html, *Winner of the 2015 SAGE Prize for Innovation and/or Excellence.*
• Kelan, E. and A. Mah (2014) ‘Between Idealization and Admiration: The Importance of Gender in Professional Identification Processes,’ British Journal of Management, 25(1): 91-101.
• Whiteside, N. and A. Mah (2012) 'Human Rights and Ethical Reasoning: Capabilities, Conventions and Spheres of Public Action' Sociology (Special Issue on Human Rights) 46 (5): 921-935.
• Mah, A. (2012) 'Demolition for Development: A Critical Analysis of Official Urban Imaginaries in Past and Present UK cities,' Journal Of Historical Sociology 25 (1): 151-176.
• Mah, A. (2010) 'Memory, Uncertainty and Industrial Ruination: Walker Riverside, Newcastle upon Tyne,' International Journal Of Urban And Regional Research, 34 (2 ): 398-413.
• Mah, A. (2009) 'Moral Judgements and Employment Policies in Birmingham (1870-1914) : Multiplying the Categories and Treatments of the "Undeserving",' International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 29 (11/12) : 575-586.
• Mah, A. (2009) 'Devastation But Also Home: Place Attachment in Areas of Industrial Decline,' Home Cultures, 6 (3): 287-310.

Book Chapters

• Mah, A. (2020) 'Toxic Legacies and Environmental Justice,' in Environmental Justice: Key Concepts, ed. B. Coolsaet. New York and London: Routledge.
• Mah, A. (2017) 'Ruination and Post-industrial Urban Decline,' in The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City, eds. R. Burdett and S. Hall, Sage. pp. 201-212.
• Mah, A. (2017) ‘Industrial Ruination and Shared Experiences: A Brief Encounter with Stoke-on-Trent.’ Topographies of the Obsolete: Ashmolean Papers, Eds. N. Brownsword and A. Mydland. Topographies of the Obsolete Publications, 50-57.
• Mah, A. (2015) 'Dangerous Cargo and Uneven Toxic Risks: Petrochemicals in the Port of New Orleans,' in Cargomobilities: Moving Materials in a Global Age, eds. T. Birtchnell, S. Savitzky, and J. Urry, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 149-162.
• Mah, A. (2015) 'Reconstructing Port City Identities: Waterfront Development in Liverpool, Marseille and New Orleans,' (German) in Zeitgeschichte in Hamburg. Ed. C. Strupp, University of Hamburg. pp. 38-70.
• Mah, A. (2008) ‘Ivanovo: In and Amongst the Ruins,’ in The Role of Culture in the Economic Development of Old Industrial Regions. Eds. P. Benneworth and G.-J. Hospers, LIT Verlag, pp. 185-203.

Public Writing

• Mah, A. (2019), "Special Issue: Making the Petrochemical Connection," Toxic News, May 2019.
• Mah, A. (2017), "The Challenges of Tackling Global Environmental Injustice," Lacuna Magazine, March 2017. http://lacuna.org.uk/environment/challenges-tackling-global-environmental-injustice/
• Mah, A. (2016), "The US Love Canal Disaster and its Legacy,' China Dialogue, https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/8878-The-US-Love-Canal-disaster-and-its-legacy, 27 April.
• Mah, A. (2013) 'Lessons from Love Canal: Toxic Expertise and Environmental Justice,' openDemocracy, http://www.opendemocracy.net/alice-mah/lessons-from-love-canal-toxic-expertise-and-environmental-justice, 7 August.
• Mah, A. (2013) 'Living with Industrial Ruination,' Discover Society 1(1), http://www.discoversociety.org/2013/10/01/living-with-industrial-ruination, October 2013

Doctoral Supervision

• Zainab Moulvi, "Culture, ecology and social transformation: The case of the Thal desert." Co-supervised with Virinder Kalra.
• Patricio Flores Silva, "Exploring limits for transnational environmental justice: the Arica Victims v. Boliden Minerals case." Co-supervised with Nerea Calvillo.
• Anissa Yu, "Identifying, recognising, and reconciling value differences in social movements: The case of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement." Co-supervised with John Solomos.
• Cong Wang, "From “digital” to “smart”: the future expectation behind Intelligent Transportation System in China from 2008 to 2017." Co-supervised with Steve Fuller.
• Alexandra Kviat (completed in 2019), "Placemaking in the post-functionalist and post-digital city: the case study of Ziferblat." Co-supervised with Hannah Jones, ESRC postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leicester

• Julian Molina (completed in 2017), “Intervention Work: An Ethnography of NEET to EET Transitions.” Co-supervised with Noel Whiteside.

Postdoctoral Researchers

• Lorenzo Feltrin, Research Assistant, Toxic Expertise, global petrochemical case studies, 2019-2020
• David Brown, Research Assistant, Toxic Expertise, global petrochemical case studies, 2018-2020
• Ellie Martus, IAS WIRL Co-Fund Research Fellow, 2017-2019, post-Soviet environmental politics, from autumn 2019 Lecturer in Public Policy at the University of Brisbane
• Thomas Verbeek, Research Fellow, Toxic Expertise, corporate network & risk perception research, 2017-2019, from Sept 2019 Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Department of Urban Studies & Planning, University of Sheffield
• Calvin Jephcote, Research Fellow, Toxic Expertise, environmental health research, 2017-2019, from July 2019 Postdoctoral Research Associate in GIS for Environmental Health, University of Leicester
• Loretta Lou, Research Fellow, Toxic Expertise, China research, 2017-2018, from Jan 2019 Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Macau and Visiting Fellow in Anthropology at LSE
• Thom Davies, Research Fellow, Toxic Expertise, Louisiana research, 2015-2018, from autumn 2018 Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Nottingham
• Xinhong Wang, Research Fellow, Toxic Expertise, China research 2015-2017, from 2017 Honourary Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Warwick