The Anthropology and the Environment Committee of the RAI have put together a list of anthropologists who are interested in environmental issues.  This list is a resource for other anthropologists and for those outside anthropology looking for a particular expertise.

If you are interested in being included please reply to admin@therai.org.uk and include:

  • Name
  • Affiliation
  • Contact details
  • Statement of interest
  • Geographical/topical area of interest

Name: Nejm Benessaiah

Affiliation: University of Maryland, USA

Contact details: nlbeness@umd.edu; nejben00@gmail.com

Statement of interest: My research is on the desert region of the M’zab valley, Algeria, and the role of micro social movements in attempting to manage unstable natural resources in the midst of social change in Algeria, especially labour, land tenure and water. Rather than looking at national or global movements alone, my research focuses on the micro-level of how changes from authoritarian to inclusive forms of governance are negotiated at the everyday level in the Algerian Sahara, and how these intersect with wider global scales. My current work centers on the potential for polycentric water governance across the Middle East & North Africa through the recognition of local means and strategies, in relation to varying notions of citizenship and legal pluralities across the region.

Geographical/topical area of interest: Environmental governance, environmental justice, social movements, political economy, personhood, postcolonialism, water materiality, ethics and rights, media and identity, urban ecology, agroecology, North Africa, Middle East, Sahara, Algeria.

Name: Benjamin G. Blount

Affiliation: SocioEcological Informatics

Contact details: ben.blount23@gmail.com +1 210 627 3265

Statement of interest: I was one of the founders of the Anthropology and Environment Section of the American Anthropological Association, and I have been engaged on ecological and environmental research on fishing communities in the southeastern US for two decades.  My major work was as part of a research team developing social indicators for fishing community resilience and vulnerability.

Geographical/topical areas of interest: US South Atlantic Coast; US Gulf Coast; US Pacific Northwest Coast.

Name: Charis Ford Morrison Boke

Affiliation: Cornell University

Email: charis.boke@gmail.com / cfb72@cornell.edu
Skype: charis.boke
Twitter: @charisboke
Mobile (US): (773) 330-7959

Statement of Interest: Boke's research with United States herbalists and community organizers in New England is situated athwart environmental anthropology, medical anthropology, and political ecology. Boke's work with herbalists focuses on the ways that they construct social relations via attention to bodily wellness with humans, as well as with plants and broader ecologies. She is especially interested in how these cross-species caring relationships emerge in the context of global ecological disruptions. Her scholarly commitments in anthropology are entwined with her work as a social justice activist. Her ongoing work considers on the intersections of climate change, critical race studies, environmental justice, and multispecies studies in the United States. Her dissertation, “Ecological Bodies: North American Practices of Care in a Changing Climate” explores herbalists’ efforts to envision new forms of care and the ethics they entail in the context of ecological health and this moment of climate change.    

Geographical/topical area of interest: Global North; United States; environmental and medical anthropology, multispecies studies; political ecology

Name: Nadia Breda

Affiliation: Professor of Cultural and Environmental Anthropology at University of Florence in Italy , Dept Scifopsi.

Contact details: nadia.breda@unifi.it

Statement of interest:I am interested in particular in the wetlands and climate change issues; conflicts about environment; thirds landscape; anthropocene; water issues.

Geographical/topical area of interest: I conducted my fieldwork in Italy.

Name: Helen Brunt

Contact details: helen.brunt@gmail.com

Statement of interest: I am an independent environmental anthropologist with partiular interest in maritime communities, participation and representation in natural resource managmement in Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia.

Geographical/topical area of interest: Southeast Asia, particularly Malaysia