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Loka Ashwood (born 1984 or 1985) is an American sociologist currently working at the University of Kentucky as an associate professor of sociology. Her research focuses on rural communities and their issues. She is a 2024 MacArthur Fellow.

Her first book, For-Profit Democracy, investigated the relationship between rural American communities and the U.S. government through the lens of Burke County, Georgia and the construction of a nuclear power plant there.

Ashwood co-wrote the 2023 book Empty Fields, Empty Promises, which explored right-to-farm laws across the United States. She has criticized right-to-farm laws, saying they have been used by agricultural corporations to limit the efficacy of pollution-focused lawsuits.

Life

Ashwood was raised in a farming family in Illinois.

She graduated in 2007 from Northwestern University with a BS. She interned as a reporter for U.S. Farm Report for a few years while at Northwestern. She graduated in 2009 from University of Galway with an ML. She did community development work at the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs. She earned her PhD in 2015 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Ashwood worked as an assistant professor at Auburn University from 2015–2020. In 2020 she was hired by the University of Kentucky.

Publications

Books

• For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America (2018)
• Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-by-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm (2023); co-written with Aimee Imlay, Lindsay Kuehn, Allen Franco, and Danielle Diamond

References

1. "Loka Ashwood". University of Kentucky College of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
2. Miller, Kerri; Gordon, Kelly (2022-09-19). "The U.S. urban-rural divide is mostly a myth. Here's what's real". MPR News. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
3. ^ "Loka Ashwood". MacArthur Foundation. 2024-10-01. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
4. Blair, Elizabeth (2024-10-01). "Here's who made the 2024 MacArthur Fellows list". NPR.
5. Ashwood, Loka; Diamond, Danielle (2019-04-11). "Right-to-Farm laws run counter to rural culture and property rights". EHN. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
6. ^ Weeks, Olivia (2022-01-14). "Q&A: Why Is the Government Losing Rural America's Trust?". The Daily Yonder. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
7. "Empty Fields, Empty Promises | Loka Ashwood". University of North Carolina Press. Retrieved 2024-10-02.

• Living people
• 1980s births
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers
• 21st-century American women writers
• Academics from Illinois
• Alumni of the University of Galway
• American sociologists
• American women sociologists
• Auburn University faculty
• MacArthur Fellows
• Northwestern University alumni
• University of Kentucky faculty