By Kristina Lyons, University of California, Santa Cruz § The president of the communal action committee whom I call Doña Marta ushered me to a more secluded corner behind the schoolhouse. She spoke in a low tone about the worsening water quality of the river flowing behind us. Over the last four years, downstream communities in … More Commentary: Toxic Bodies, Part II
By Rosa E. Ficek, University of Puerto Rico at Cayey § Nobody went outside. The outside world did not exist. There was no internet or television. The power had gone out the night before, the cell phone signal early that morning. Only the radio with the one AM station that had managed to stay on air. That … More Hurricane Bomb
*A commentary on Part II of our Engagement thematic series, Life on the Frontier. By Clint Carroll, University of Colorado Boulder § Settler colonial studies offers a set of analytical tools that can help make sense of environmental practices and politics—and their resulting effects on people, other-than-human animals, and landscapes. Understanding the environmental impacts of settler colonialism, … More Commentary: The Environmental Anthropology of Settler Colonialism, Part II
ENGAGEMENT editor Rebecca Garvoille recently caught up with Genese Marie Sodikoff, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University, to discuss her new book, Forest and Labor in Madagascar: From Colonial Concession to Global Biosphere (2012, Indiana University Press), and its broader contributions to forest conservation and socio-environmental justice debates in Madagascar. This interview is the fourth … More Genese Marie Sodikoff on Forest Conservation, Malagasy Worker-Peasants and Biodiversity
By Jessica R. Cattelino § Americans live in a settler colonial society, and this shapes how we understand and engage nature. In the vast expanse of slow-flowing water and drained agricultural lands known as the Florida Everglades, thinking about settler colonialism helps make sense of Burmese python hunts and Seminole water rights, of scientific restoration … More Settler Colonial Nature in the Everglades
