Available at Rutgers University Press
“Keller does an excellent job of telling the stories of migrant workers from Veracruz working in the dairy industry in Wisconsin. Her writing is refreshing in its clarity and the author does a beautiful job of telling the stories of those she interviewed in a very vivid way.”
–Joanna Dreby, author of Everyday Illegal: When Policies Undermine Immigrant Families
About Me
I am a sociologist studying immigration, agricultural labor, rural issues, and environmental inequality. I earned my Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of Rhode Island.
My book, Milking in the Shadows: Migrants and Mobility in America’s Dairyland, was published by Rutgers University Press in 2019.
Research
I am interested in patterns of inequality in the rural United States, particularly in agriculture. I have conducted research on immigrant farmworkers, women farmers, queer farmers & refugee farmers in the U.S.
My book, Milking in the Shadows: Migrants and Mobility in America’s Dairyland, takes an in-depth look at undocumented migrants working on dairy farms in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
My latest project with economists Corey Lang (URI) and Amy Ando (UIUC) looks at how women and minority farmers access farmland, with an eye on how land access programs may or may not be meeting the needs of these farmers.
I am co-editing the Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology with Katharine Legun, Michael Carolan, and Michael M. Bell.
Featured Articles & Chapters
Keller, Julie C., Margaret Gray, and Jill Lindsey Harrison. 2017. “Milking Workers, Breaking Bodies: Health Inequality in the Dairy Industry.” New Labor Forum 26(1): 26-44.
Keller, Julie C., Sarah E. Lloyd, and Michael M. Bell. 2015. “Creating and Consuming the Heartland: Symbolic Boundaries in Representations of Femininity and Rurality in U.S. Magazines.” Journal of Rural Studies 42: 133-143.
Keller, Julie C. 2014. ” “I Wanna Have My Own Damn Dairy Farm!”: Women Farmers, Legibility and Femininity in Rural Wisconsin.” Journal of Rural Social Sciences 29(1): 75-102.
Julie C. Keller, PhD 