Graduate Directory

Summary of Expertise

Abby Cunniff studies environmental justice and California prisons, from physical infrastructure problems like water and air quality within prisons to labor programs outside prisons, where incarcerated people fight fires, construct roads, restore habitats, and build park infrastructure. Cunniff's public scholarship has focused on pressing issues that incarcerated people face due to prison conditions and climate change, while their academic work has focused on understanding prison labor as part of climate adaptation labor and within the politics of prison abolition. 

Their dissertation, “The Invisible Infantry of the Californian Landscape: Incarcerated Workers, Racialized Exploitation, and Environmental Change (1915-2020)" brings to light the racialized labor exploitation of incarcerated workers in conservation and forestry workforces in the past century. This applied research informs the unfolding debates around incarcerated labor in California firefighting and the nationwide incidence of “carceral environmental labor,” a term used to describe the work of incarcerated people, the majority of whom are Black and Brown working-class men, tasked with managing environmental problems like wildfires. In contrast to debates about prison labor in terms of rehabilitative efficacy or as a testament to the extremity of today’s environmental problems, this research shows that the core variable is racialized labor exploitation, which emphasizes the value of incarcerated workers’ labor for state infrastructure, natural resource management, and climate disaster response. Additionally, excavating the voices of incarcerated people from this program’s history illuminates a previously unknown arena of labor organizing and Black Radical Tradition inside California prisons, where thousands of incarcerated workers joined Afro-American Groups to conduct work stoppages demanding an end to their exploitation and the closure of state prisons.

Research Interests

Environmental Justice, Prison Studies and Abolition, Critical Infrastructure Studies, Carceral Geography, Environmental History

Biography, Education and Training

BA from Wesleyan University, American Studies with a concentration in Native American Politics

Honors, Awards and Grants

2024 Walter S. Rosenberry Fellowship, Forest History Society

2024 Bancroft Library Summer Study Award, UC Berkeley

2024 Honorable Mention, Center for Engaged Scholarship

2024 Summer Research Award, Environmental Studies, UC Santa Cruz

2023 Switzer Fellowship, Switzer Foundation

2022 Qualifying Exam Honors, Environmental Studies, UC Santa Cruz

2022 Dean’s Travel Grant, UC Santa Cruz

2020 Global Community Health Fellowship, UC Santa Cruz

2016 Davenport Public Research Grant, Wesleyan University

2016 Dean’s List, Wesleyan University

Selected Publications

Peer Reviewed:

Cunniff, Abby. “On the Fire Line in 1970 and On Strike in 1971: Black Radicalism and Incarcerated Workers in California’s Conservation Camp Program.” Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. In Review.

Johnson, Leigh, Michael Mikulewicz, Patrick Bigger, Ritodhi Chakraborty, Abby Cunniff, P. Joshua Griffin, Vincent Guermond, Nicole Lambrou, Megan Mills-Novoa, Benjamin Neimark, Sara Nelson, Costanza Rampini, Pasang Sherpa, and Gregory Simon. 2023. “Intervention: The Invisible Labor of Climate Change Adaptation.” Global Environmental Change 83:102769. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102769. 

Cunniff, Abby. “Environmental Injustice in California Prisons: Infrastructure, Pollution, and Prisoner Health.” Journal of Global Environmental Justice. Spring 2022.

Other:  

Cunniff, Abby. “Book Review: Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia.” Crime, Media, Culture. April 2023.

“Militia, Security, and Smallpox in Middletown Settler Society as related to the Wangunk people (1754-1785).” Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut. Fall 2017.

Writing for the Public: 

Cunniff, Abby, and Ruth Wilson Gilmore. "The Nordic distraction: We need prison closures, abolition, and care." Prism Reports, September 26, 2024

“2 California Prisons Face Imminent Flooding. They Must Be Evacuated Now.” Truthout, April 14, 2023

“Fire Country Is Brought to You by Austerity, Mass Incarceration, and Climate Change.” Jacobin, October 9, 2022

“California Is Dependent on Prison Labor for Fighting Fires. This Must End.” Truthout, September 23, 2022

Cunniff, Abby, and Jarrod Shanahan. “Judah Schept’s Coal, Cages, Crisis: Seeing the Prison Landscape.” The Brooklyn Rail, September 1, 2022

"Brutal Island." Los Angeles Review of Books. May 17, 2022

Cunniff, Abby, and Summer Sullivan. "This Prison in California Forced Incarcerated People to Drink Arsenic for Years." Truthout. February 13, 2022

Californians United for a Responsible Budget, "We Are Not Disposable: The Toxic Impact of Prisons and Jails,” October 2016

Selected Presentations

“Environmental Justice in San Francisco: Toxic Industry and Social Movements,” Guest Lecture for UC Berkeley School of Landscape Architecture, [IN]LAND Intensive, July 2024 

“Unfolding Histories of the Carceral State.” Midwest World History Association. Moderator and presenter. September 2023, Chicago, IL

“A Labor History of California’s Incarcerated Firefighters.” Environmental Justice and the Common Good. Poster presentation. April 2023, Santa Clara University

“Incarceration and Climate Change.” American Association of Geography. Co-organizer and panelist. March 2023, Denver, CO

“Wildfires and Prison Labor: Questions of Social and Climate Justice.” Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. Panelist. March 2023, Eugene, OR

“Decarceration and the County Jail.” American Society of Criminology. Moderator. November 2022, Atlanta, GA

“No Choice But Poisoned Water.” Kite Line Radio with Micol Seigel, April 1, 2022 

“Invisible Labor of Climate Change Adaptation.” American Association of Geography. Panelist. March 2022, New York City

Teaching Interests

Environmental Justice, Political Ecology, Environmental Policy, Environmental History, Sociology

Instructor of Record

“An Introduction to World Environmental History,” Environmental Studies, UC Santa Cruz, Fall 2024

“Environmental Policy, Economics, and Justice,” Environmental Studies UC Santa Cruz, Summer 2024

Teaching Assistant 

“Ecology and Society,” with Dr. Madeleine Fairbairn, Environmental Studies UC Santa Cruz, Spring 2022

“Environmental Law and Policy,” with Doug Bushey, JD, Legal Studies, UC Santa Cruz, Spring 2021

“Global Environmental Justice,” Dr. S. Ravi Rajan, Environmental Studies, UC Santa Cruz, Winter 2021