Laura McKinney

Education

Biography

Research Interests

Environmental Sociology; Global Social Change and Development; Global and Local Sustainability; Rural and Community Development; Quantitative Methodologies.

Current Research Projects

I am currently working on research projects in the following areas:

Macro-Comparative Sociology--I am developing manuscripts that synthesize theories from the social, physical and natural sciences and employ innovative empirical techniques to aid in theoretical integration. My work in this area can be broadly characterized as interdisciplinary investigations of global inequality.

Environmental Sociology--I am developing manuscripts that interweave diverse theoretical approaches and utilize novel methodologies to study complex dynamics surrounding nature--society interactions and sustainability at the national and global level.

Community Sociology--I have ongoing research efforts that investigate the distribution of disasters, waste, and recycling across the southeastern United States and collaborations on urban agriculture in New Orleans. I am beginning new research on a recently declared Superfund site in Louisiana to understand the needs of individuals in the surrounding community and how scientific research can address them.

Selected Publications

McKinney, Laura and Kelly Austin. Forthcoming. "Ecological Losses are Infecting Women: An Analysis of Female HIV Prevalence and Life Expectancy in Less-Developed Countries." Social Problems.

McKinney, Laura and Gregory Fulkerson. 2015. "Gender Equality and Climate Justice: A Cross-National Analysis." Social Justice Research 28(3):293-317.

Kato, Yuki and Laura McKinney. 2015. "Bringing food desert residents to an alternative food market: A semi-experimental study of impediments to food access." Agriculture and Human Values 32(2):215-227.

McKinney, Laura A., Edward L. Kick, and Clare Cannon. 2015. "A Human Ecology Approach to Environmental Inequality: A County-Level Analysis of Natural Disasters and the Distribution of Landfills in the Southeastern US." Human Ecology Review 21(1):109-132.

McKinney, Laura. 2014. "Gender, Democracy, Development, and Overshoot: A Cross-National Analysis." Population and Environment 36(2):193-218.

McKinney, Laura A. 2014. "Foreign Direct Investment, Development, and Overshoot." Social Science Research 47:121-133.

Kick, Edward L. and Laura A. McKinney. 2014. "Global Context, National Interdependencies, and the Ecological Footprint: A Structural Equation Analysis." Sociological Perspectives 57(2):256-279.

Austin, Kelly F. and Laura A. McKinney. 2012. "Disease, War, Hunger, and Deprivation: A Cross-National Investigation of the Determinants of Life Expectancy in Less-Developed and Sub-Saharan African Nations." Sociological Perspectives 55(3):421-47.

McKinney, Laura A. 2012. "Entropic Disorder: New Frontiers in Environmental Sociology." Sociological Perspectives 55(2):295-317.

Austin, Kelly F., Laura A. McKinney and Gretchen Thompson. 2012. "Agricultural Trade Dependency and the Threat of Starvation: A Cross-National Analysis of Hunger as Unequal Exchange." International Journal of Sociology 42(2):68-89.

Kick, Edward L., Laura A. McKinney, and Gretchen H. Thompson. 2011. "Intensity of Food Deprivation: The Integrative Impacts of the World-System, Modernization, Conflict, Militarization and the Environment." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 52(6):478-502.

Kick, Edward L., James C. Fraser, Gregory M. Fulkerson, Laura A. McKinney, and Daniel H. DeVries. 2011. "Repetitive Flood Victims and Acceptance of FEMA Mitigation Offers: An Analysis with Community-System Policy Implications." Disasters: The Journal of Disaster Studies, Policy, and Management 35(3):510-39.

McKinney, Laura A., Edward L. Kick, and Gregory M. Fulkerson. 2010. "World-System, Anthropogenic, and Ecological Threats to Bird and Mammal Species: A Structural Equation Analysis of Biodiversity Loss." Organization & Environment 23(1):3-31.

Shandra, John M., Laura A. McKinney, Christopher Leckband, and Bruce London. 2010. "Debt, Structural Adjustment, and Biodiversity Loss: A Cross-National Analysis of Threatened Mammals and Birds." Human Ecology Review 17(1):18-33.

Fulkerson, Gregory M., Laura A. McKinney, and Kelly Austin. 2010. "Global Warmers and Global Coolers: A Cross-National Examination of Global Warming Dynamics." International Journal of Sociology 40(2):44-64.

McKinney, Laura A., Gregory M. Fulkerson, and Edward L. Kick. 2009. "Investigating the Correlates of Biodiversity Loss: A Cross-National Quantitative Analysis of Threatened Bird Species." Human Ecology Review 16(1):103-13.

Shandra, John M., Christopher Leckband, Laura A. McKinney, and Bruce London. 2009. "Ecologically Unequal Exchange, World Polity, and Biodiversity Loss: A Cross-National Analysis of Threatened Mammals." International Journal of Comparative Sociology 50(3-4):285-310.