Loka Ashwood
Maybe Rural Communities Can Have it All: Join the Movement Toward ACRE Justice.
About me
publications
Loka Ashwood is a sociologist and MacArthur Fellow whose work uses democratic, community-centered practices to confront today’s most urgent environmental challenges.
She examines how laws, corporations, and government policies shape—and often strain—the lives of rural communities.
Featured work
Empty Fields, Empty Promises
Loka Ashwood, Sociologist and author examining how laws, corporations, and government policies shape rural communities, co-authored “Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-by-State Guide to Transforming and Understanding the Right to Farm.”
The book explores how Right-to-Farm laws impact farmers, rural residents, and land rights across the U.S. The book is available online and interactive, state specific summaries of Right-to-Farm laws can be found on the One Rural Website.
featured work
For-Profit Democracy
Loka’s book explains how corporations and government often work together to dispossess rural communities—costing them prosperity and sometimes even their land.