Anthropology and the Environment
Educational Institutions and Programs
This is a working list of programs of anthropological instruction on environmental studies or ecology. We welcome descriptions of other departments or programs in the area of environmental anthropology.The School of Anthropology, Geography & Environmental Studies (SAGES)
at University of Melbourne, Australia
The School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies (SAGES)is an large interdisciplinary Department at one of Australia's top research universities. Masters in Development Studies, Geography, and Environment - by research, or by coursework and thesis are offered, along with a 3/4 year doctoral program. Environmental anthropologists on the faculty include Monical Minnegal and Peter Dwyer (Papua New Guinea and Australia), and geographer/political ecologists Simon Batterbury (Africa) and Lisa Palmer (indigenous Australia). In addition, Jon Barnett and Peter Christoff offer environmental expertize in the Pacific and Australia, and instruction and laboratories are are available for a range of ecological techniques.
Anthropological Center for
Training and Research on Global Enviromental Change
Indiana University
Anthropological Center for Training and Research on Global Environmental
Change located at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, was designed
to provide interdisciplinary research and training in the human dimensions
of environmental change. The center is particularly interested in conducting
research and finding effective strategies for the restoration of degraded
environments and for the development of sustainable uses of natural resources.
The center's research focuses on local populations' management of natural
resources and monitoring these activities with the use of remote sensing
technologies and field studies. The center is designed to be interdisciplinary
in nature and places emphasis on local, human responses to environmental
change. The center provides facilities for research by faculty, students,
postdoctoral fellows, and visitors from NGO and other organizations." --
A & E newsletter, May '96. The program is directed by Emilio F. Moran.
Centre for the
Comparative Study of Culture
Development
and the Environment
University
of Sussex
The Centre for the Comparative Study of Culture, Development and the
Environment is one of a number of Graduate Research Centres at the University
of Sussex. We address the common problems arising from the relationship
between 'North' and 'South', and we have a special, but by no means exclusive,
interest in the development process.
Conservation, Biodiversity and Sustainable Economic Development Program
University of Arizona
"The Conservation Biodiversity and Sustainable Economic Development
has the goal of evaluating alternative strategies for minimizing the negative
impacts on biological and cultural diversity resulting from the exploitation
of newly discovered biological resources and identifying alternative strategies
for ensuring that economic and social benefits accrue to local and national
economies as a consequence of the exploitation of pharmaceutically useful
medicinal plants." --A & E newsletter, April '96
Department of Anthropology
and Ecology
University of Geneva
No information available.
Ecological
Anthropology
University
of Hawai'i
The Department of Anthropology offers a concentration in ecological
anthropology for the B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. Directed by Leslie E.
Sponsel.
Ecological Anthropology and Ethnobiology
University of California, Riverside
The Department of Anthropology of the University of California, Riverside,
offers a special focus for graduate education in Ecological Anthropology
and Ethnobiology, including agriculture and agrarian issues. This focus
integrates all the traditional subfields of anthropology: the four classic
subfields of archaeological, biological, cultural, and linguistic anthropology,
and the "fifth field" of applied and practical work. Faculty from all the
four fields cooperate in offering the program. We also cooperate with faculty
in other departments at UCR. The major areas of active work within this
specialty focus are: Agriculture, Food Production, and Agrarian Issues;
Archaeology and Prehistory of Subsistence Systems; Ethnobiology and Ethnoscience;
Human and Higher Primate Evolutionary Ecology; Human Reproductive Ecology;
and Political Ecology.
Environmental
Anthropology Program
University
of Washington
Environmental Anthropology (EA) is a new interdisciplinary graduate
program based in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Washington
(UW). Its purpose is to provide a coherent framework for graduate students
wishing to study environmental topics from an anthropological perspective,
while building and maintaining strong interdisciplinary connections. Further
details on the program can be obtained from visiting its web site.
Department of Anthropology
University of Georgia
"The University of Georgia's graduate program in anthropology is focused
on ecological and environmental education and takes advantage of the university's
well established tradition in ecological research. In addition to the anthropology
department, the university also houses the Institute of Ecology, the Environmental
Ethics Program, the School of Forest Resources, and the College of Agricultural
and Environmental Sciences. The Anthropology Department is headed by Jim
Whitney, and the faculty include Peter Brosius, Robert Roades, Charles
Hudson, Ben Blount, Brent Berlin, Elois Ann Berlin, David Hally, Carolyn
L. Ehardt, Ted Gragson, Virginia Nazarea, Stephen Kowalewski. and Elizabeth
Reitz. Laboratory facilities for ethnobiology, biodiversity, agriculture
and natural resources, archaeology, ethnobotany, zooarchaeology, the Sustainable
Human Ecosystems Laboratory, as well as ethnolinguistics laboratory facilities
are available in the program. Ongoing projects in ethnographic research
and training and sustainable agriculture may provide opportunities for
students to pursue dissertation research in the context of ongoing interdisciplinary
team research in the Philippines, Ecuador, and coastal Georgia." -- A &
E newsletter, May '96
Rutgers University
The anthropology graduate program at Rutgers offers a new specialty in environmental anthropology. "The Human Ecology Department at Rutgers is a multi-disciplinary research and teaching department committed to addressing the human dimensions of environmental problems and includes the participation of faculty from the departments of geography, psychology, sociology and anthropology. The department
was created in 1973 by Andrew Vayda. The program includes specialists in ecological theory, cognitive theory,medical anthropology, fisheries and marine conservation, livestock pastoralism,tropical forest use as well as suburban lifestyles and environmentalism,
risk management, and international environmental studies." Click here to visit the Human Ecology web site at Rutgers University.
Program in Cognitive
Studies of the Environment
Northwestern University
Northwestern University's Program in Cognitive Studies of the Environment
is an interdisciplinary research consortium made up of cultural anthropologists,
cognitive psychologists, ecologists, biologists, and linguists. Our goal
is to apply theories of decision making, concept formation, and reasoning
to policy-relevant goals for an integrated assessment of humankind's changing
relationship to its natural resources, such as forests, fauna, wetlands
and waters. We are working in geographically diverse areas, such as Guatemala,
southern Mexico and northern Wisconsin on problems related to the field
of cognition, environmental decison making etc. As an interdisciplinary
research program it provides the cultural anthropologist with challenging
views and methods from other fields, that enrich each individuals view.
Tropical Conservation and Development Program
Department of Anthropology
University of Florida
The Ecological Anthropology concentration in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida provides graduate training in anthropology with an interdisciplinary focus on human interactions with the biophysical environment. The Deparment of Anthropology at UF is one of the top-ranked programs in the country. The anthropology department at UF is a four-field department with a strong tradition in applied anthropology as well, with 36 faculty and 19 affiliates. The wide range of faculty research and interests in the department ensures that students receive a well rounded education in anthropology in addition to their specialization in ecological anthropology. 18 faculty participate in the Ecological Anthropology concentration. Graduate education in ecological anthropology at both the masters and Ph.D. level involves rigorous training in research design and methodology, anthropological theory and the development of professional skills. The philosophy underlying the concentration is to allow maximum flexibility in students' course of study, in consultation with their advisory committee. Thus, there are not any required courses within the concentration but students are expected to take a wide range of courses, in the anthropology department and beyond, on human-environment interactions.
Faculty research interests and expertise related to ecological anthropology include agroforestry, conservation and sustainable livelihood improvement, development and environmental change, ecology of complex societies, environmental disaster and change, ethnobiology, ethnobotany, GIS, historical ecology, human ecosystem theory, human health and the biophysical environment, hunter/gatherer ecology, land use and land cover change, non-human primate ecology, nutrition and the biophysical environment, paleoecology of early humans, archaeology and paleoenvironment, plant domestication, political ecology, remote sensing, and zooarchaeology. Geographical areas include Amazon, Andes, Caribbean, Latin America, Mesoamerica, North America, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Lab facilities include GIS/Remote Sensing, Anthropological Data Analysis, Ethnobotanical Herbarium, Southeastern U.S. Archaeology, Mesoamerican Archaeology, Visual Anthropology, and Biological Anthropology. Students also collaborate with anthropologists in the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Students are encouraged to participate in interdisciplinary centers and institutes at the University of Florida. These include the Land Use and Environmental Change Institute (LUECI), Tropical Conservation and Development Program (TCD), Institute for Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies, Environmental Archaeology Program, H.T. Odum Center for Wetlands, Center for Latin American Studies, Center for Asian Studies, and the Center for African Studies among others. Also, the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) contains 280 faculty from 49 departments and 11 colleges working on a broad range of issues of potential interest to anthropology graduate students concerned with environmental research..
Gender, Justice and Environmental Change
Michigan State University
The Gender, Justice and Environmental Change Program (GJEC) is a graduate specialization available as an elective for students who are enrolled in master's and doctoral degree programs at Michigan State University. The specialization is sponsored jointly by the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the College of Social Science. This program, first offered in Fall 2000, is the first of its kind in the nation explicitly focusing on the intersection of gender, environmental change, and social and environmental justice. The program is designed in particular to examine these issues and processes from both local and global perspectives, challenging traditional dichotomies between the First and Third World, the North and the South.
The GJEC program offers graduate students a supportive and rigorous academic environment for exploring these issues as well as credentials demonstrating specialized training in the field. The specialization is intended to (1) provide graduate students from different disciplinary backgrounds with the analytical and methodological tools to address environmental issues from gender relations and social justice perspectives; (2) provide students with a global perspective on environmental issues by drawing out local-global linkages; (3) foster the growth of research, service, and interdisciplinary collaboration in the fields of gender and environmental studies; and (4) increase awareness among faculty, students, and the public of the linkages between gender and the environment, both domestically and internationally.
Environmental Anthropology and Sociology
Florida International University
Environmental change, environmental management, degradation, global warming, depletion of natural resources. As never before, the environment has come to be a key concern for citizens and policy makers around the world. Anthropologists and sociologists at FIU have important contributions to make to these debates, using their distinctive theoretical and methodological approaches to analyze the interactions between humans and their natural environments, to call into question such apparently natural categories as nature and culture, north and south, environmental degradation and restoration, to analyze the social structures which seek to control environments and people, and to examine the formation of new environmental political identities.
The Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami has recently become home to one of the largest concentrations of environmental anthropologists in the country. We invite students to take advantage of this new opportunity to study with a growing community of scholars. The range of expertise in the department allows students to work on research projects that draw upon the full breadth of environmental anthropology approaches, and to engage with the politics of nature as they are contested on multiple sociospatial scales from the local to the global. FIU’s geographical location in Miami, next to the Everglades and as gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean, provides a uniquely stimulating research laboratory for studying issues of place, space, power and identity. Moreover, the faculty in our department and at FIU in general constitutes one of the richest concentrations of Latin American and Caribbean scholars anywhere.
University of South Carolina
If you are considering graduate studies in cultural/political ecology, development, and/or human security and vulnerability, I encourage you to consider geography at the University of South Carolina. Over the past five years we have hired nine new faculty members to replace retiring senior colleagues, adding new concentrations of faculty expertise that complement our existing strengths. We are especially pleased with the complementary research and teaching foci shared by our human geographers. We are especially eager to attract qualified graduate students who share our interests in:
Each of these areas is cooperatively supported by our faculty members who bring a diversity of methodological approaches and active research experience to seminars and advising. As a result, we can offer students a well-rounded array of perspectives and empirical depth in these areas within a supportive and collaborative setting. In addition, our department continues to offer students excellent training in the GISciences and physical subfields, which are easily integrated with interests in human geography. We are confident that students will find our graduate program to be a rich and fulfilling experience.