2025
Jorgenson, Andrew, Taekyeong Goh, Ryan Thombs, Yasmin Koop-Monteiro, Mark Shakespear, Grace Gletsu, Nicolas Viens. 2025. "Inequality is driving the climate crisis: A longitudinal analysis of province-level carbon emissions in Canada, 1997–2020." Energy Research & Social Science, 119: 103845. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103845.
Abstract: The authors conduct a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between carbon emissions and income inequality for the Canadian provinces for the 1997 to 2020 period. The results indicate that the short-run and long-run effects of the income share of the top 10 % and the top 5 % on province-level emissions are positive, robust to various model specifications, net of multiple demographic and economic factors, not sensitive to exogenous shocks or outlier cases, symmetrical, statistically equivalent for emissions from different sectors, and their short-term effects do not vary in magnitude through time. The findings also consistently show that the estimated effect of the Gini coefficient on province-level emissions is not statistically significant. Overall, the results underscore the importance in modeling the effects of income inequality measures that quantify different characteristics of income distributions, and they are very consistent with analytical approaches regarding power concentration, overconsumption, and status competition that suggest that a higher concentration of income leads to growth in anthropogenic carbon emissions.
2024
Stoddart, Mark C. J., Yasmin Koop-Monteiro, and David B. Tindall. 2024. “Instagram as an Arena of Climate Change Communication and Mobilization: A Discourse Network Analysis of COP26.” Environmental Communication, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2024.2377719.
Abstract: Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings on climate change are opportunities for social movements and other non-state actors to engage in climate change communication and mobilization. We focus on Instagram as an online arena of climate communication and mobilization during COP26, held in Glasgow. Instagram is a distinct arena for eco-political communication and activism because of its visual focus and generally younger user base. Using a Discourse Network Analysis approach, we analyse 2417 posts to examine relationships and alignments across imagery, discourses, and actors. Instagram serves as a space to articulate critical counter-discourses of climate justice, Indigenous rights, and individual action as a response to perceived failures of COP processes and formal agreements. At the same time, images of celebrities and politicians structure much of the Instagram discourse network. This highlights how Instagram contributes to a celebritization of climate politics, with individual political actors positioned as climate heroes or villains.
Jorgenson, Andrew, Taekyeong Goh, Ryan Thombs, Yasmin Koop-Monteiro, Mark Shakespear, Nicolas Viens, and Grace Gletsu. 2024. “Economic growth and income inequality increase the carbon intensity of human well-being for Canada’s provinces.” npj Climate Action 3(58). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00144-y.
Abstract: Reducing the carbon intensity of human well-being (CIWB) is a potential form of climate action. We conduct a preliminary analysis of the effects of economic growth and income inequality on the CIWB of Canada’s provinces, and find that both increase CIWB in this sub-national context. We also find that their effects are symmetrical, meaning that positive and negative changes in economic growth and income inequality result in the same proportional changes in CIWB. Therefore, and while incredibly difficult to do, it is possible that efforts to reduce income inequality and economic growth are potential pathways to reducing CIWB.
2023
Koop-Monteiro, Yasmin, Mark C.J. Stoddart, David B. Tindall. 2023. “Animals and climate change: A visual and discourse network analysis of Instagram posts.” Environmental Sociology, 9(4), 409–426. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2023.2216371.
Abstract: Animals featured prominently during the United Nations’ 2021 Climate Change Conference (COP26), both within the meeting and outside during protests. This begs the question: How are animals portrayed in climate change discourse? To answer this question, we conduct visual and discourse network analysis of animal-related Instagram posts collected around COP26. We present a typology of four ways in which animals are framed as (1) metaphors for climate-related concerns, (2) citizens with interests worth respecting, (3) biodiversity or key ecosystem components, and (4) resources for human use, showing how each framing connects to various discourses and organizations/collective actors. Compared to previous research on climate communication, our findings reveal a broader range of animals are integrated into climate change discourse, and humans are often framing animals in multiple ways at once for various eco-political purposes. In addition, our analysis suggests that, compared with other sectors of society, governmental organizations are giving much less attention to animal issues in their climate communications. Finally, our results show how engaging a diversity of perspectives about animals – and eschewing the dominant resource-framing of animals – can enhance climate change discourse by broadening the range of discussions and potential solutions to the current ecological crisis.
Video abstract: https://vimeo.com/834786767
Browne, Pierson, Adam Howe, Yasmin Koop-Monteiro, Yixi Yang, and John McLevey. 2023. “Scientific software for network analysis.” Pp. 610-634 in the Sage Handbook of Social Network Analysis (Second Edition). Edited by John McLevey, Peter J. Carrington, and John Scott. London: Sage. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-handbook-of-social-network-analysis/book277881.
Abstract: This chapter serves as a practical introduction to scientific software tools commonly used in social network analysis, and network science more generally. Rather than review the vast and diverse software landscape, we focus on helping newcomers to the field get started with analysing network data for the first time. To that end, we introduce three software tools: UCINet with NetDraw, R with the sna library, and Python with the NetworkX package.
Koop-Monteiro, Yasmin. 2023. “Including Animals in Sociology.” Current Sociology. 71(6), 1141-1158. https://doi.org/10.1177/00113921211065492.
Abstract: How do we include animals in sociology? Although sociology’s initial avoidance of the nonhuman world may have been necessary to the field’s development, recent scholarship – within mainstream sociology, environmental sociology and animal-centred research – is helping expand the field’s horizons. With a focus on variety, this article reviews four key paths that researchers are taking to include animals in their research: (1) studying interspecies relations, (2) theorizing animals as an oppressed group, (3) investigating the social and ecological impacts of animal agriculture and (4) analysing social-ecological networks. This review shows how applying – and innovating – existing social theories and research methods allows researchers to include animals in their analyses and will be relevant to a variety of scholars, including mainstream and environmental sociologists, animal-focused researchers and social network analysts, to name a few.
2022
Tindall, David B., John McLevey, Yasmin Koop-Monteiro, and Alexander V. Graham. 2022. “The Big Data and Computational Social Science Revolution: Implications for Social Network Analysis.” Canadian Review of Sociology, 59(2): 271-288. https://doi.org/10.1111/cars.12377.
Abstract: While sociologists have studied social networks for about one hundred years, recent developments in data, technology, and methods of analysis provide opportunities for social network analysis (SNA) to play a prominent role in the new research world of big data and computational social science (CSS). In our review, we focus on four broad topics: (1) Collecting Social Network Data from the Web, (2) Non-traditional and Bipartite/Multi-mode Networks, including Discourse and Semantic Networks, and Social-Ecological Networks, (3) Recent Developments in Statistical Inference for Networks, and (4) Ethics in Computational Network Research.
2021
Koop-Monteiro, Yasmin. 2021. “The Social Organization of Community-Run Place: An Analysis of Community Gardens and Crime in Vancouver (2005-2015).” Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 63(1): 23-51. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjccj.2020-0013.
Abstract: Community gardens can bring many benefits to community members, including access to healthy, affordable foods and opportunities for social interaction. Less certain, however, is their contribution to neighbourhood resilience to crime. To date, few studies have focused on the ability of community gardens – as distinct from other types of green spaces – to promote social organization and reduce local crime. Findings of studies that do so are inconclusive, and at best suggestive of gardens’ crime-deterring effects. The present study spotlights community gardens as unique spaces promoting social capital development and attachment to place, testing the effect of new community gardens in Vancouver, BC. Using neighbourhood census data from 2005 to 2015, the effects of new community gardens, as well as median income, population size, homeownership, and ethnic diversity, on property crime are assessed with multilevel modeling. The results show significant negative effects of median income, population size, and new community gardens on crime, with the addition of just one garden reducing neighbourhood crime by approximately 49 counts, and with increases in population size (by 1,000 individuals) and median income (by CAD$1,000) lowering crime by 48 and 34 counts, respectively.