Meghan Kallman
Affiliated Faculty, Department of Sociology
Biography
Meghan Elizabeth Kallman is an organizational theorist and an expert on political and development sociology. She earned her PhD in Sociology from Brown University, and holds additional degrees from the University of Chicago and Smith College. Her work draws on organizational theory to understand how organizations shape the politics of their intrinsically motivated participants, including in environmental, political, and community movements.
Degrees
Brown University, PhD, Sociology
University of Chicago, MA, Social Science
Smith College, BA Sociology, minor Studio Art
Professional Publications & Contributions
Books
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. This is What Democracy Sounds Like: Gender and Urban Futures in Activist Street Bands (in production, Columbia University Press).
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth, and Josephine Ferorelli. 2024. The Conceivable Future: Planning Families and Taking Action in the Age of Climate Change. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
- First Place winner of the Nellie Bly Book Award for journalistic nonfiction, 2024
- Starred by Booklist, February 2024
- One of the Top 10 environmental books of 2024, by ALA Booklist
- Featured twice on CSPAN-Books
- Covered in The New Republic, the Boston Globe, Yale Climate Connections, Publishers Weekly, The Independent, and many others
Malin, Stephanie A., and Meghan Elizabeth Kallman. 2022. Building Something Better: Environmental Crises and the Promise of Community Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2020. The Death of Idealism: Development and Anti-Politics in the Peace Corps. New York, NY: Columbia University Press
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth, and Terry N. Clark. 2016. The Third Sector: Community Organizations, NGOs, and Nonprofits. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press
Clark, Terry N. and Meghan Elizabeth Kallman. 2011. The Global Transformation of Organized Groups: New Roles for Community Service Organizations, Non-Profits, and the New Political Culture. Beijing: China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges, Ministry of Commerce.
Peer-Reviwed Journal articles & Book Chapters
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth, and Anne Gravelle Antoni. “Toxic Solidarity in AmeriCorps*VISTA” (accepted and forthcoming, Capital and Class)
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2023. “Why Epistemic Believing Makes Us Better (Public) Sociologists.” Sociological Forum n/a(n/a). doi: 10.1111/socf.12904.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth, and Scott Frickel. 2023. “Making the ‘Business Case’: Vocabularies of Motive and Clean Tech Innovation in the Hidden Developmental State.” Socio-Economic Review 21 (1):571–592
Malin, Stephanie A., and Meghan Elizabeth Kallman. 2022. “Enforcing Hopelessness: Complicity, Dependence, and Organizing in Frontline Oil and Gas Communities.” Social Problems. doi: 10.1093/socpro/spac032.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2022. “Autonomous Leadership and Organizational Practice in Leaderless Street Bands.” Pp. 347–66 in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Organizations, edited by M. Godwyn. Cheltenham, UK ; Northampton, MA, USA; Edward Elgar Publishing.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth<. 2021. ‘Encapsulation, Professionalization and Managerialism in the Peace Corps’, International Public Management Journal, 24 (6), pp. 943-972
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2020. “Leadership, Inclusion, and Group Decision-Making in HONK! Bands.” in HONK!: A Street Band Renaissance of Music and Activism, edited by R. Garofalo, E. T. Allen, and A. Snyder. New York: Routledge.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2020. “‘Living More Through Knowing More’: College Education in Prison Classrooms.” Adult Education Quarterly 70(4):321–39. doi: 10.1177/0741713619889589.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth and Scott Frickel. 2019. ‘Nested Logics and Smart Meter Adoption: Institutional Processes and Organizational Change in the Diffusion of Smart Meters in the United States’. Energy Research & Social Science. 57.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2019. ‘The “male” privilege of White women, the “White” privilege of Black women, and vulnerability to violence: an intersectional analysis of Peace Corps workers in host countries’. International Feminist Journal of Politics. 21(4): pp. 566-594
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth and Scott Frickel. 2019. ‘Power to the People: Industrial Transition Movements and Energy Populism.’ Environmental Sociology. 5(3): pp. 255–68.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2018. ‘Dimensions of Cosmopolitanism: State Identification and Values among Peace Corps Volunteers’. International Journal of Sociology 48(3) pp. 189-215
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2018. ‘Teaching Sociology in a Men’s Prison: How Total Institutions Shape Pedagogy and Engagement with Content’. Teaching Sociology, Vol. 46 (4), pp. 295-308
Frickel, Scott, Daniela Wühr, Christine Horne and Meghan Elizabeth Kallman. 2017. ‘Field of Visions: Inter-organizational Challenges to Smart Energy Transition in Washington State’. Brooklyn Law Review, 82.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2017. ‘Allocative failures: networks and institutions in international grantmaking relationships’. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 28(2), pp. 745-772
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2016. ‘Technical, Emotional, Professional: Idealism and Commitment in the Peace Corps’ in Materiality, Rules, and Regulation, François-Xavier du Vaujany & Nathalie Mitev, eds. London: Palgrave.
Kallman, Meghan Elizabeth. 2014. ‘Making the Cosmopolitan Canopy in Boston’s Haymarket Square’. Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol 38 (5), pp. 759-774
Additional Information
Select Awards & Honors
2025
Donald J. Gatzke Outstanding Teaching Award (for supervision of Caitlin Ferrarini’s dissertation, entitled ‘Examining the Potential of Online Community-Based Learning to Foster Global Citizenship Capacities in College Students: A Mixed-Methods-Multi-Institutional Study’), American Association of University Administrators.
2024
Nellie Bly Award for Journalistic Nonfiction, for The Conceivable Future
Booklist starred review, for The Conceivable Future
Top 10 environmental books of 2024, by ALA Booklist, for The Conceivable Future
Charles Hachadorian, Jr Award, Rhode Island Pharmacists Association. Presented annually to a non-pharmacist who has recognized and supported the efforts that pharmacy has made to healthcare.
2023
Legislative Champion, Clean Water Action. Presented annually to a legislator who has advanced environmental health in the state of Rhode Island.
2022
Public Sociology Award for Early Career Scholars, Eastern Sociological Society (ESS). The Award recognizes pre-tenure scholars whose sociological work and practice has demonstrated a commitment and contribution to public sociology that improves public welfare, broadly understood, or the lives of research participants, or helps organizations with which they work.
2021
Pacesetter Award, WiLL (Women Legislators Lobby). The national Pacesetter award recognizes state legislators for their noteworthy legislative service, their contributions to sound, progressive policy, and their groundbreaking leadership in their respective states.