Lisa L. Gezon (University of Michigan ’95) is a cultural anthropologist whose primary research area has been in Madagascar, but who has also conducted research on coastal Georgia and in Senegal, West Africa. She is interested in many facets of humans and their relationship to the material environment, including conservation and protected area management (Madagascar), management of water commons (coastal Georgia), and the contribution of peanut farming to deforestation (Senegal). She is currently interested in the commodity chains of the drug khat in Madagascar, considering land cover change, rural and urban livelihoods, and the cultural politics of drug policies and perceptions (research funded by National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, and a U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship). An important component of her research has incorporated satellite image analysis of land cover change to better understand human impacts. Her current research intersects with a critical medical anthropology of drugs, poverty, and health. She is currently looking into developing a research interest in Costa Rica, examining comparative aspects of conservation, tourism, and land use.
Significant publications have included Global Visions, Local Landscapes: A Political Ecology of Conservation, Conflict, and Control in Northern Madagascar, AltaMira Press, 2006; and Political Ecology, Across Spaces, Scales and Social Groups (with Susan Paulson), Rutgers University Press, 2005.
She has been teaching Anthropology at the University of West Georgia since 1996 and is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology. |
