May 2004
Rebecca Zarger, Contributing Editor
Anthropology and Environment Section
Annual Anthropology and Environment Rappaport Prize Session
Submitted by: Rebecca Zarger, Section Editor
At the Executive Board meeting and the Section Business Meeting last November (2003) in Chicago, members supported the restructuring of the Annual Roy A. Rappaport Student Paper Prize sponsored by A & E. The goal was to revise the structure of the competition to enhance the learning and mentorship experience for graduate students in ecological and environmental anthropology and to encourage a greater number of students to submit their work. The decision was made for the A & E student representative to organize a session consisting of five student papers selected by a Prize Committee. Participating students have the opportunity to present their work at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings and compete for the top prize, a cash award of $250. Each of the five finalists will also receive $100 to attend the annual meeting.
The Rappaport Prize Committee recently selected 5 student participants from 26 submissions to form a lively session proposal that illustrates current emphases in graduate student research. The proposed session, Anthropology & Environment: A New Generation, “showcases exemplary work by graduate students in the field of environmental and ecological anthropology. Their diverse ethnographic and critical analyses include: How conservation NGOs influence indigenous knowledge in Madagascar; environmental education and transnational movements of knowledge about environment and development in Costa Rica; using shifting landscape aesthetics as a means of studying social and environmental change in the San Juan Islands, Washington; resistance by communities to notions of pristine nature in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador; and a historically-informed examination of how migration, combined with conservation and development activities, are reshaping ecology, economy and society in southern Mexico.
The winner of the prestigious Rappaport Prize, selected from among these finalists, will be announced at the A&E Business Meeting. In addition to offering a forum for work by up-and-coming graduate-level researchers in the field of environmental and ecological anthropology, the competition provides mentorship activities to help graduate students develop their papers into articles suitable for publishing in refereed journals.”
The following graduate students were selected for the 2004 Panel: Alison Lee (UC Riverside), "Migration, Ecology and Natural Resource Conservation: Material and ideological appropriations of the environment in the Mixteca Baja of Puebla, Mexico”; Nicole Blum (U of Sussex, UK), "Participation, Power and Sustainable Development: The Case of Environmental Education in Costa Rica"; Sharon Baskind (Rutgers), “‘Nature Means Beautiful’: Landscape Aesthetics and Historical Ecology in the San Juan Islands, WA”; Jill Constantino (Michigan), "The 'Wild West' of the Pacific: Peopling and Depeopling the Galapagos Islands"; Douglas Hume (Connecticut), "Malagasy Swidden Agriculture: The Influence of Conservation Organizations on Indigenous Knowledge". Tom Sheridan (Arizona), President of A & E, will chair the session; Melissa Johnson (Southwestern) will serve as discussant and Wendy Weisman (Rutgers) is the session organizer.
Please send information, essays, or research updates to the section editor: Rebecca Zarger (zarger@fiu.edu), Dept. of Environmental Studies & Sociology/Anthropology, ECS 332, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199.