Professor Alice Mah

Professor in Urban and Environmental Studies (Urban Studies & Social Policy)

email: Alice.Mah@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns: She/her/hers

Biography

Alice Mah is Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at the University of Glasgow. Prior to this she was Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded Starting Grant “Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry.” Her research and teaching contributions focus on toxic pollution and environmental justice; just and sustainable transformations; and anti-colonial ecological alternatives and futures.

Alice is the author of Red Pockets: An Offering (2025, Allen Lane); Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation (2023, Duke University Press); Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis (2022, Polity Press); Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post-Truth Age (with Thom Davies, 2020, University of Manchester Press); Port Cities and Global Legacies (2014, Palgrave Macmillan), and Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place (2012, University of Toronto Press), winner of the 2013 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Memorial Prize. Her wide-ranging interdisciplinary research has been published in leading academic journals and received awards, including the Philip Leverhulme Prize and the SAGE Prize for Innovation/Excellence.

Research interests

environmental justice
just and sustainable transformations
urban inequalities and toxic pollution
climate justice and decarbonisation
deindustrialization and post-industrial transformation
sociology of the petrochemical, plastics, and fossil fuel industries
corporate sustainability
degrowth and ecological alternatives/futures

Research groups

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2025 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2017 | 2015 | 2014 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009

Number of items: 32.

2025

Dauvergne, P. et al. (2025) Competing axes of power in the global plastics treaty: understanding the politics of progress and setbacks in negotiating a high-ambition agreement. Marine Policy, 181, 106820. (doi: 10.1016/j.marpol.2025.106820)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2025) Red Pockets: An Offering. Allen Lane (Penguin Books). ISBN 9780241608319

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2025) Anticipating just transitions: ecological crisis and future deindustrialization. In: Strangleman, Tim, Linkon, Sherry Lee, High, Steven, Clarke, Jackie and Berger, Stefan (eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of Deindustrialization Studies. Routledge: London and New York, pp. 169-178. ISBN 9781032311524

2023

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2023) Petrochemical Planet: Multiscalar Battles of Industrial Transformation. Duke University Press. ISBN 9781478025122 (doi: 10.1215/9781478027126)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2023) Foreword. In: Kryder-Reid, Elizabeth and May, Sarah (eds.) Toxic Heritage: Legacies, Futures, and Environmental Injustice. Series: Key issues in cultural heritage. Routledge, xix-xxi. ISBN 9781032429991

2022

Tilsted, Joachim Peter, Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527, Nielson, Tobias Dan, Finkill, Guy and Bauer, Fredric (2022) Petrochemical transition narratives: Selling fossil fuel solutions in a decarbonizing world. Energy Research and Social Science, 94, 102800. (doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2022.102880)

Brown, David, Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 and Walker, Gordon (2022) The tenacity of trust in petrochemical communities: reckoning with risk on the Fawley Waterside (1997–2019). Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5(3), pp. 997-1696. (doi: 10.1177/25148486211045367)

Feltrin, Lorenzo, Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 and Brown, David (2022) Noxious deindustrialization: experiences of precarity and pollution in Scotland’s petrochemical capital. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 40(4), pp. 781-986. (doi: 10.1177/23996544211056328)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2022) Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It. Polity Press. ISBN 9781509549450

2021

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2021) Future-proofing capitalism: the paradox of the circular economy for plastics. Global Environmental Politics, 21(2), pp. 121-142. (doi: 10.1162/glep_a_00594)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2021) Ecological crisis, decarbonisation, and degrowth: the dilemmas of just petrochemical transformations. Stato e Mercato, 121(April), pp. 51-78. (doi: 10.1425/101444)

2020

Jephcote, Calvin, Brown, David, Verbeek, Thomas and Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2020) A systematic review and meta-analysis of haematological malignancies in residents living near petrochemical facilities. Environmental Health, 19(1), 53. (doi: 10.1186/s12940-020-00582-1) (PMID:32430062) (PMCID:PMC7236944)

Verbeek, Thomas and Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2020) Integration and isolation in the global petrochemical industry: a multiscalar corporate network analysis. Economic Geography, 96(4), pp. 363-387. (doi: 10.1080/00130095.2020.1794809)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2020) Toxic legacies and environmental justice. In: Coolsaet, Brendan (ed.) Environmental Justice: Key Concepts. Routledge: London and New York, pp. 121-131. ISBN 9780367139933

Davies, Thom and Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (Eds.) (2020) Toxic Truths: Environmental Justice and Citizen Science in a Post-Truth Age. University of Manchester Press: Manchester. ISBN 9781526137029

2019

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 and Wang, Xinhong (2019) Accumulated injuries of environmental injustice: living and working with petrochemical pollution in Nanjing, China. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 109(6), pp. 1961-1977. (doi: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1574551)

Jephcote, Calvin and Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2019) Regional inequalities in benzene exposures across the European petrochemical industry: a Bayesian multilevel modelling approach. Environment International, 132, 104812. (doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2019.05.006) (PMID:31421386) (PMCID:PMC6857433)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2019) A layover stop in the African American great migration: identity, ruination, and memory. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42(13), pp. 2326-2332. (doi: 10.1080/01419870.2019.1605090)

2017

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2017) Ruination and post-industrial urban decline. In: Hall, Suzanne and Burdett, Ricky (eds.) The SAGE Handbook of the 21st Century City. Sage, pp. 201-212. ISBN 9781473987869

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2017) Environmental justice in the age of big data: challenging toxic blind spots of voice, speed, and expertise. Environmental Sociology, 3(2), pp. 122-133. (doi: 10.1080/23251042.2016.1220849)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 and Wang, Xinhong (2017) Research on environmental justice in China: limitations and possibilities. Chinese Journal of Environmental Law, 1, pp. 263-272. (doi: 10.1163/24686042-12340016)

2015

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2015) Dangerous cargo and uneven toxic risks: petrochemicals in the [ort of New Orleans. In: Birtchnell, Thomas, Savitzky, Satya and Urry, John (eds.) Cargomobilities: Moving Materials in a Global Age. Routledge: London and New York, pp. 149-162. ISBN 9781315866673 (doi: 10.4324/9781315866673-9)

2014

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2014) The dereliction tourist: ethical issues of conducting research in areas of industrial ruination. Sociological Research Online, 19(4), 13. (doi: 10.5153/sro.3330)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2014) Port Cities and Global Legacies: Urban Identity, Waterfront Work, and Radicalism. Palgrave Macmillan: London. ISBN 9781137283139 (doi: 10.1057/9781137283146)

Kelan, Elisabeth K. and Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2014) Gendered identification: between idealization and admiration. British Journal of Management, 25(1), pp. 91-101. (doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2012.00834.x)

2012

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2012) Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place: Landscapes and Legacies of Urban Decline. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442645493

Whiteside, Noel and Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2012) Human rights and ethical reasoning: capabilities, conventions and spheres of public action. Sociology, 46(5), pp. 921-935. (doi: 10.1177/0038038512450807)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2012) Demolition for development: a critical analysis of official urban imaginaries in past and present UK cities. Journal of Historical Sociology, 25(1), pp. 151-176. (doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6443.2011.01406.x)

2011

Behal, Rana, Fall, Babacar and Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (Eds.) (2011) Rethinking Work: Global Historical and Sociological Perspectives. Tulika Books: Delhi. ISBN 9788189487850

2010

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2010) Memory, uncertainty and industrial ruination: Walker Riverside, Newcastle upon Tyne. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(2), pp. 398-413. (doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.00898.x)

2009

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2009) Devastation but also Home: Place Attachment in Areas of Industrial Decline. Home Cultures, 6(3), pp. 287-310. (doi: 10.2752/174063109X12462745321462)

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2009) Moral judgements and employment policies in Birmingham (1870-1914): multiplying the categories and treatments of the “undeserving”. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 29(11/12), pp. 575-586. (doi: 10.1108/01443330910999023)

This list was generated on Tue Sep 16 11:13:56 2025 BST.

Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections | Edited Books

Number of items: 32.

Articles

Books

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2025) Red Pockets: An Offering. Allen Lane (Penguin Books). ISBN 9780241608319

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2022) Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations are Fuelling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It. Polity Press. ISBN 9781509549450

Mah, Alice ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8183-2527 (2012) Industrial Ruination, Community, and Place: Landscapes and Legacies of Urban Decline. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442645493

Book Sections

Edited Books

This list was generated on Tue Sep 16 11:13:56 2025 BST.

Grants

Alice is currently a Co-Investigator on the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)-funded partnership project “Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time” (PI Steven High), $2.5 million CAD overall (2020-2027)

Previous externally funded research projects:

Philip Leverhulme Prize- Principal Investigator, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, £100,000 (2018-2023)

European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, “Toxic Expertise: Environmental Justice and the Global Petrochemical Industry”- Principal Investigator, €1.5 million (2015-2020)

ESRC Connected Communities Imagine Project: “The Social, Historical, Cultural and Democratic Context of Civic Engagement.” Role: Co-I, (PI: Professor Kate Pahl, University of Sheffield), £1.2 million overall (2013-2017)

Supervision

Alice welcomes enquiries to supervise research students with interests in environmental (in)justice, just transitions, sustainable urbanism, toxic pollution, and urban and environmental sociology/politics.

Current PhD projects supervised:

“China’s Low-carbon Energy Transition: A Case Study of the Xing’an League Clean Energy Demonstration Base in Inner Mongolia.”
"How Can Innovation Districts Deliver Inclusive Growth in Post-Industrial Urban Communities?"

Completed PhD projects supervised:

“Worlding Thal: In the Shadow of an Agrarian Economy.”
“Challenging Global Environmental Injustice: The Arica Victims KB v. Boliden Minerals AB Case.”
“The Dynamics of Meaning-Making: Negotiating Non-Violence in Hong Kong’s Democracy Movement between 2014 and 2019.”
“The Brain of the Smart Transportation System: Exploring the Role of Future Expectations and Sociotechnical Imaginaries in Cutting-Edge Science and Technology Policymaking in China.”
“Placemaking in the Post-Functionalist and Post-Digital City: The Case Study of Ziferblat.”
“Intervention Work: An Ethnography of NEET to EET Transitions.”

Teaching

Convening:

URBAN 5116 Sustainable Urban Futures (PGT)

URBAN 5090 International Urban Challenges (PGT)

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