Maxwell School: Department of Anthropology

I am an applied cultural anthropologist with research interests in the fields of rural development planning, natural resource management (especially community forestry), agriculture, conflict management, rural socioeconomic change, and the history of applied anthropology. Most of my fieldwork experience is in East Africa – Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia.

Recently I have been conducting research on the history of American applied anthropology, focusing on the career of Charles J. Erasmus, a pioneer in applied medical and agricultural anthropology. Erasmus also contributed substantially to anthropological theory, especially regarding cooperation, culture change, and cultural evolution. He was an innovative fieldworker as well, including pioneering time-allocation studies in the late 1940s and doing multi-sited fieldwork in the early 1950s.

From 1999 to 2007. I was part of the BASIS Greater Horn of Africa Collaborative Research Support Program’s project on food security and livelihoods in South Wello and Oromiya Zones of Amhara Region in Ethiopia. The project consisted of a multidisciplinary team from the Institute of Development Research at Addis Ababa University, the Institute for Development Anthropology, and several American universities.

I have worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on natural resource conflict management, including developing training materials and editing case studies. With Antonia Engel I recently edited and contributed to Negotiation and Mediation Techniques for Natural Resource Management: Case Studies and Lessons Learned (Rome, Italy: FAO, 2007). Erik Nielsen and I also edited and contributed to Natural Resource Conflict Management Case Studies: An Analysis of Power, Participation and Protected Areas (Rome, Italy, 2003). I also contributed to other FAO conflict management publications, including Community-Based Forest Resource Conflict Management (2002) Conflict and Natural Resource Management (2001), Integrating Conflict Management Considerations into Policy Frameworks (1997), and the proceedings from the 1996 electronic conference on “Addressing Natural Resource Conflicts through Community Forestry.” My service as a consultant for FAO dates back to the early 1980s, and it has included such issues as participatory forestry and rural development planning.

My other past applied experience includes working on natural resource management, rural financial markets, and community forestry for the United States Agency for International Development, serving as team leader for the evaluation of Bangladesh’s social forestry project for the United Nations Development Programme, and carrying out social surveys of refugee camps in Somalia for CARE.

2008	Review of Nuer-American Passages: Globalizing Sudanese Migration by Dianna J. Shandy, American Anthropologist, Vol. 110, No. 1, pp. 141-142.
2008	A. Peter Castro, “Forestry: Eastern Africa,” in John Middleton (Editor in Chief), New Encyclopedia of Africa, Volume 2. Detroit: Thomson & Gale, pp. 403-405.
2008	David W. Brokensha and A. Peter Castro, “Energy: Domestic,” in John Middleton (Editor in Chief), New Encyclopedia of Africa, Volume 2. Detroit: Thomson & Gale, pp. 263-266.
2007	A. Peter Castro and Antonia Engel, editors. Negotiation and Mediation Techniques for Natural Resource Management: Case Studies and Lessons Learned. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2007, 74 pages.
2006	“Moving in Place: Drought and Poverty Dynamics in South Wello, Ethiopia,” Journal of Development Studies 42 (2), 2006, pp. 200-225 (with Peter D. Little, M. Priscilla Stone, Tewodaj Mogues and Workneh Negatu).
2005	“Developing Local Capacity for Management of Natural Resource Conflicts in Africa: A Review of Key Issues, Approaches, and Outcomes.” Report prepared for the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management-Collaborative Research Support Program, University of Georgia, Athens, April 2005 (47 pp.).
2005	Review of Somalia: Economy Without State, by Peter D. Little. Oxford: James Currey, Indiana University Press, Hargeisa: Btec Books, 2003. American Ethnologist 32 (1) February 2005 (online at: http://www.aaanet.org/aes/bkreviews/result_details.cfm?bk_id=3249)
2004	Peter Little, M. Priscilla Stone, Tewodaj Mogues, A. Peter Castro, and Workneh Negatu, “Churning” on the Margins: How the Poor Respond to Drought in South Wello, Ethiopia. BASIS Brief, No. 21, October 2004, pp. 1-4.
2003	Natural Resource Conflict Management Case Studies: An Analysis of Power, Participation and Protected Areas. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (co-edited with Erik Nielsen), 284 pages. Available online at: http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/005/Y4503E/Y4503E00.HTM
2003	“Overview,” in Natural Resource Conflict Management Case Studies, pp. 1-17 (with Erik Nielsen)
2002	“Social Capital, Assets and Responses to Drought: Preliminary Observations from Interviews in Oromiya and South Wello Zones, Amhara Region, Ethiopia” Madison and Addis Ababa: BASIS Greater Horn of Africa Program and the Institute for Development Research, Addis Ababa University (29 pp.).
2002	“Social Capital, Assets and Responses to Drought: Interviews in Oromiya and South Wello Zones, Amhara Region, Ethiopia, August 2002,” Madison and Addis Ababa: BASIS Greater Horn of Africa Program and the Institute for Development Research, Addis Ababa University (85 pp., with Mengistu Dessalegn Debela).
2001	“Incorporating Population Dynamics Into Community Forestry: Results and Lessons from Five Case Studies.” Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Forestry Department, Forest Policy and Planning Division, 101 pp.
2001	"Report of a Research Trip to South Wello and Oromiya Zones of Amhara Region, Ethiopia, May 27-June 4, 2001," Addis Ababa: BASIS Horn of Africa Program and Addis Ababa University, Institute of Development Research, 41 pp.
2001	"Indigenous People and Co-Management: Implications for Conflict Management," Environmental Science and Policy, Vol. 4, No. 4/5, pp. 229-239 (with Erik Nielsen).
2001	"Sacred Landscapes of Kirinyaga: Indigenous and Early Islamic and Christian Influences," in P. Arnold and A. Gold, eds, Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics, Burlington: Ashgate (with Adelle Tibbetts), pp. 55-81.
2000	"Food Security and Resource Access: A Final Report on the Community Assessments in South Wello and Oromiya Zones of Amhara Region, Ethiopia," Addis Ababa: BASIS Horn of Africa Program and Addis Ababa University, Institute of Development Research (with Yared Amare et al.), 59 pp.
2000	"Trip Report: Ethiopia, January 10-30, 2000." Addis Ababa: BASIS Horn of Africa Program; Addis Ababa University, Institute of Development Research; Institute for Development Anthropology (50 pp.)
1999	"Community Assessments in South Wello: Kebele Profiles, Parts I, II, III & IV." Addis Ababa: BASIS Horn of Africa Program and Addis Ababa University, Institute of Development Research (with Yared Amare et al.), 175 pp.
1999	"Rapid Community Assessment Field Test, South Wello, Ethiopia. Addis Ababa" BASIS Horn of Africa Program and Addis Ababa University, Institute of Development Research. 72 pp.
1998	Editor for "Special Section on Historical Consciousness and Development Planning," World Development, Vol. 26, No. 9, pp. 1695-1784.
1998	"Sustainable Agriculture or Sustained Error?" The Case of Cotton in Kirinyaga, Kenya," World Development, Vol. 26, No. 9, pp. 1719-1731.
1998	"Integrating Conflict Management into Forestry Policy: An Applied Anthropologist's Perspective," in Integrating Conflict Management Considerations into National Policy Frameworks. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, pp. 195-207.
1997	"Social and Anti-Social Forestry: Lessons from Bangladesh." Development Anthropologist, Vol. 15, No. 1 & 2, pp. 1, 3-12.
1997	"Indigenous Knowledge and Conflict Management: Exploring Local Perspectives and Mechanisms for Dealing with Community Forestry Disputes," in Volume 1: Compilation of Discussion Papers Made to the Electronic Conference on “Addressing Natural Resource Conflicts through Community Forestry.” Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, pp. 141-164 (with Kreg Ettenger)
1996	"Contracts, Cooperatives and Coercion: The Kerugoya and Karatina Dried Vegetable Project, 1940-1947," African Rural and Urban Studies, Vol. 3, No 3, pp. 101-136.
1996	"The Political Economy of Farm Forestry in Colonial Kenya," in L. Sponsel et al. (eds.) Tropical Deforestation. New York: Columbia University Press, Pp. 122-143.
1995	"Coffee, Tea, or Bureaucracy? Two Commodity Case Studies from Kirinyaga, Kenya," Research in Economic Anthropology 16, pp. 349-396.
1995	Facing Kirinyaga: A Social History of Forest Commons in Southern Mount Kenya. London: Intermediate Technology Publications, Indigenous Knowledge Series.

Selected Publications