The Department of Anthropology
presents
Dr. J. Peter Brosius
Department of Anthropology
University of Georgia
"At the beginning of the 21st century, as global environmental change proceeds at an unprecedented pace, conservation has become a central element in civic and political debates in the nations of both the North and the South. Responding to these debates, new forms of conservation practice are continually emerging. In this discussion I focus on the recent proliferation of strategic approaches to conservation, most clearly seen in the linked enterprises of ecoregional conservation planning and conservation finance. I also examine how social scientists have responded to these developments, a trend most evident in the proliferation of studies focused on understanding how this strategic turn in conservation has produced new configurations of power and a new politics of scale. I assess the value of recent social science contributions to conservation, and describe an emerging program of integrative conservation research that attempts to link conservation science and the social sciences in a more productive manner."
Prof. Brosius’ research combines a strong focus on local priorities and processes with attention to national and transnational environmental governance and management practices. He is Past President of the Anthropology and Environment Section of the American Anthropological Association, serves as Associate Editor of the journal Human Ecology, and is on the editorial board of the American Anthropologist. He has previously conducted research on the historical ecology of deforestation on Mt. Pinatubo, Philippines, and on international environmental politics in Sarawak, East Malaysia. In recent years, his research has focused mostly on conservation, and on the effort to foster productive links between conservation biology and the social sciences. He is a founding member of the Society for Conservation Biology Social Science Working Group. His recent publications include Communities and Conservation: Histories and Politics of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (edited with Anna Tsing and Charles Zerner; Altamira, 2005) and “Common Ground between Anthropology and Conservation Biology” (Conservation Biology 20(3):683-685, 2006). He is currently completing a book entitled Arresting Images: The Sarawak Rainforest Campaign and Transnational Environmental Politics.