Faculty Profile
Erica Zurawski
Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental Studies
Rm. 244 Marshall Hall
Research
My research is driven by my desire to draw out the socio-legal-technical practices that shape the conditions of possibility for transformative health, environmental, and food equity. As I discuss in my article “Food Desert Imperialism” (2025), I am inspired to examine how mundane objects – such as metaphors, imaginaries, and technologies – co-produce policy, scientific knowledge production, and material practices. My research projects foreground my interdisciplinary training in sociology, human geography, feminist studies, and law which allows me to forge innovative interventions in contemporary debates on food, environmental, and health inequalities, law and policy, science and technology studies, and urban and environmental sociology.
For more details about my specific research project, a full list of awards and publications, and the most recent updates about my work, please visit my personal website.
Research Interests & Areas of Expertise
the 'work' of metaphors and imaginaries, food inequality and food justice, regenerative agriculture, theories of change in food and agriculture movements, healthism, science and technology studiescritical food studies, cultural studies, environmental humanities, political economy and ecology, critical social theory, feminist theory, human geography, critical legal and policy studies
New & Featured Publications
2026 Hey, M. and Zurawski, E. “Brokering the Gut: Microbial Decoys in the Documentary Hack Your Health.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 13(66).
2025 Zurawski, E. and Hey, M. “Gut Healthism: The Penetrating Gaze and Depoliticising
Forces of Direct-to-Consumer Microbiome Testing Kits.” Sociology of Health and Illness
47(8).
2025 Zurawski, E. “Food Desert Imperialism: The Colonial Legacy of the Food Desert
Metaphor.” Environmental Humanities 17(1).
2023 Zurawski, E. “Materializing the Metaphor: Theorizing the Food Desert as a
Socio-Spatial-Legal Instrument in the Production of Space.” Human Geography 16(3).
2020 Guthman, J. and Julie Guthman and Erica Zurawski. ‘“If I need to put more armor on, I
can’t carry more guns’: The Collective Action Problem of Breeding for Productivity in
the California Strawberry Industry.” The International Journal of Sociology of
Agriculture and Food 26(1).
Research
My research is driven by my desire to draw out the socio-legal-technical practices that shape the conditions of possibility for transformative health, environmental, and food equity. As I discuss in my article “Food Desert Imperialism” (2025), I am inspired to examine how mundane objects – such as metaphors, imaginaries, and technologies – co-produce policy, scientific knowledge production, and material practices. My research projects foreground my interdisciplinary training in sociology, human geography, feminist studies, and law which allows me to forge innovative interventions in contemporary debates on food, environmental, and health inequalities, law and policy, science and technology studies, and urban and environmental sociology.
For more details about my specific research project, a full list of awards and publications, and the most recent updates about my work, please visit my personal website.
Research Interests & Areas of Expertise
the 'work' of metaphors and imaginaries, food inequality and food justice, regenerative agriculture, theories of change in food and agriculture movements, healthism, science and technology studiescritical food studies, cultural studies, environmental humanities, political economy and ecology, critical social theory, feminist theory, human geography, critical legal and policy studies
New & Featured Publications
2026 Hey, M. and Zurawski, E. “Brokering the Gut: Microbial Decoys in the Documentary Hack Your Health.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 13(66).
2025 Zurawski, E. and Hey, M. “Gut Healthism: The Penetrating Gaze and Depoliticising Forces of Direct-to-Consumer Microbiome Testing Kits.” Sociology of Health and Illness 47(8).
2025 Zurawski, E. “Food Desert Imperialism: The Colonial Legacy of the Food Desert Metaphor.” Environmental Humanities 17(1).
2024 Zurawski, E. and Higgins, A.K. “Radical Legal Geographies of Food Desert Spatial Imaginaries.” in Radical Food Geographies: Power, Knowledge and Resistance, eds. Colleen Hammelman, Charles Z. Levkoe, and Kristin Reynolds. Bristol University Press.
2023 Zurawski, E. “Materializing the Metaphor: Theorizing the Food Desert as a Socio-Spatial-Legal Instrument in the Production of Space.” Human Geography 16(3).
2020 Guthman, J. and Julie Guthman and Erica Zurawski. ‘“If I need to put more armor on, I can’t carry more guns’: The Collective Action Problem of Breeding for Productivity in the California Strawberry Industry.” The International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 26(1).
Education
- PhD, Sociology, University of California Santa Cruz
- MA, Sociology, University of California Santa Cruz
- JD, University of Wisconsin Law School
- BA, Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison
Teaching & Courses
My teaching reflects my interdisciplinarity and offers students introductions to environmental humanities, cultural studies, social theory, the sociology of food and agriculture, sociologies of health and wellness, and social movements. Currently, I teach the following courses:
- EST 205: Identity, Culture & the Environment
- EST 390: Social Processes & the Environment
- EST 416/618: Political Ecologies of Food & Agriculture (listed as EST 496/696 for Fall 2026)
- EST 708: Environment & Society