Tom Perreault
Professor, Geography
Director of Graduate Studies, Geography
Degree
Ph.D., University of Colorado, 2000
Specialties
Political ecology; environmental and resource governance; agrarian political economy and rural livelihoods; indigeneity and indigenous politics; Latin America
Courses
ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY (GEO 103) This course provides an introduction to environmental geography. It focuses on the social aspects of resource use practices and environmental policy, with special focus on issues of energy use, water resources, and agricultural systems. GEO 103 syllabus
GEOGRAPHIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE (GEO 353) This course examines issues of environmental racism and classism, and the political ecology of environmentally-based social movements in the US and Third World. Special attention is paid to conceptual and legal problems of environmental justice, and struggles over environmental quality. GEO 353 syllabus
GEOGRAPHY OF MOUNTAIN ENVIRONMENTS (GEO 317) This course examines geoecological and socio-economic processes associated mountain regions and environments. Topics covered include plate tectonics, geomorphology, biogeography, resource use systems, political conflict, socio-economic change, conservation and development. GEO 317 syllabus
LATIN AMERICA: DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT (GEOGRAPHY 321), Department of Geography, Syracuse University. This advanced undergraduate course examines processes of colonization, economic development, resource use, and social mobilization in Latin America. GEO 321 syllabus
FOOD: A CRITICAL GEOGRAPHY (GEO 415) This course examines the geographies of agro-food systems, from farm to processing plant to grocery store to dinner plate. It considers contemporary agricultural systems (including industrial, peasant, and organic farming systems), examines the meat and food processing industries, and explores questions of access, hunger and food justice. GEO 415 syllabus
RESEARCH DESIGN (GEOGRAPHY 602), Department of Geography, Syracuse University. This graduate seminar focuses on aspects of research design, with a particular focus on proposal writing and research ethics. GEO 602 syllabus
THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT (GEO 705) This graduate seminar takes an in-depth look at development theory, and traces the historical debates between various currents of thought. Topics include modernization theory, dependency theory, poststructural anti-development critiques, gender and development, grassroots development, sustainability, and neoliberalism. GEO 705 syllabus
SEMINAR IN POLITICAL ECOLOGY (GEO 755) This graduate seminar examines the political and economic context of environmental change and conflict. Theoretical readings and case studies highlight the social production and politicization of nature through struggles over landscapes and livelihoods, and explore ways in which understandings of nature are bound up with relations of power and constructions of identity. GEO 755 syllabus
Publications
Books
2018 Rutgerd Boelens, Tom Perreault, and Jeroen Vos (editors), Water Justice. Cambridge University
Press.
2015 Tom Perreault, Gavin Bridge and James McCarthy (editors), The Handbook of Political Ecology, London: Routledge.
2014 Tom Perreault (editor), Minería, Agua y Justicia Social en los Andes: Experiencias Comparativas de Perú y Bolivia (editedvolume) Cusco: Centro Bartolomé de las Casas/La Paz: PIEB.
2002 Thomas Perreault, Movilización política e identidad indígena en el Alto Napo, Quito: Ediciones Abya Yala.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Forthcoming Tom Perreault, “Mining and development in Latin America.” In J. Cupples, M. Palomino-Schalscha and M. Prieto (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Latin American Development, London: Routledge.
Forthcoming Tom Perreault “Prólogo,” in Jessica Budds and Cecilia Roa (eds.), Agua, Equidad y Justicia: El Papel de las Relaciones de Poder en la Asignación, Uso y Gobernanza de Recursos Hídricos en América Latina. Quito: Abya Yala.
Forthcoming Tom Perreault “La memoria del agua: Contaminación minera, memoria colectiva y justicia hídrica,” in Gisselle Vila Benites y 
Cristóbal Bonelli (eds.), A contracorriente: agua y conflicto en América Latina. Quito: Abya Yala.
2018 Tom Perreault “The plantation and the mine: Comment on ‘After the land grab: Infrastructural violence and the “mafia system” in Indonesia’s oil palm plantation zone” by Tania Li.’ Geoforum.
2018 Tom Perreault “The meaning of mining, the memory of water: Collective experience as
environmental justice,” In Water Justice, Rutgerd Boelens, Tom Perreault, Jeron Vos,
and Margreet Zwarteveen (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2017 Tom Perreault “Mining, meaning and memory in the Andes,” The Geographical Journal (doi: 10.1111/geoj.12239).
2017 Tom Perreault “Tendencies in tension:
Resource governance and social contradictions in contemporary Bolivia,” In
Governing Extraction, Lori Leonard (ed.), London:
Routledge.
2017 Tom Perreault "Qué tipo de gobernanza para qué tipo de
equidad? Hacia
una teorización de la justicia en la gobernanza hídrica,” Justicia Hídrica,
Bibiana Duarte, Jaime Hoogesteger and Critina Yacoub (editors). Quito:
Abya Yala.
2017 Andrea Marston and Tom Perreault, “Consent, coercion and cooperativismo: Mining and environmental governance in Bolivia,” Environment and Planning A, 49(2): 252-272.
2017 Tom Perreault, “Governing from the ground up? Translocal networks and the politics of environmental suffering in Bolivia,” In Grassroots
Environmental Governance: Community Engagements with Industry. Leah Horowitz
and Michael Watts (eds.), London: Routledge, pp. 103-125.
2015 Tom Perreault, "Corrientes, colonialismos y contradicciones: Repensando los raíces y trayectorias de la ecología política," Estudios Atacameños,
51: 177-183.
2015 Tom Perreault, “Performing participation: Mining, power, and the limits of consultation in Bolivia.” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, 20(3): 433-451.
2015 Gavin Bridge, James McCarthy and Tom Perreault, “Introduction” in The Handbook of Political Ecology, Tom Perreault, Gavin Bridge and James McCarthy (eds.), London: Routledge, pp. 3-18.
2015 James McCarthy, Tom Perreault and Gavin Bridge, “Conclusion,” in The Handbook of Political Ecology, Tom Perreault, Gavin Bridge and James McCarthy (eds.), London: Routledge, pp. 620-629.
2015 Tom Perreault, “Prólogo,” In Ecología Política en Chile: Naturaleza, Conocimiento, Propiedad y Poder, Beatriz Bustos (ed.), Santiago: Universidad de Chile, pp. 9-14.
2014 Tom Perreault, “Introducción: Minería, agua y justicia Social en los Andes,” in Minería, Agua y Justicia Social en los Andes: Experiencias Comparativas de Perú y Bolivia, Tom Perreault, (ed.), Cusco: Centro Bartolomé de las Casas/La Paz:PIEB, pp. 13-40.
2014 Tom Perreault, “Agua, minería, modos de vida y justicia social en el altiplano boliviano,” in Minería, Agua y Justicia Social en los Andes: Experiencias Comparativas de Perú y Bolivia,Tom Perreault (ed.), Cusco: Centro Bartolomé de las Casas/La Paz: PIEB, pp. 101-124.
2014 Tom Perreault, “Beyond the watershed: Decision making at what scale?” In Negotiating Water Governance: Why the Politics of Scale Matter, Emma Norman, Christina Cook, Kathryn Furlong (eds.), 117-124.
2014 Tom Perreault, “Participación y poder: la consulta previa y sus descontentos en el sector minero de Bolivia.” In Extractivismo minero en Colombia y América Latina, B. Göbel y A. Ulloa (eds.), Bogotá: Universidad
Nacional de Colombia -Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut. pp. 107- 136.
2014 Tom Perreault, “What kind of governance for what kind of equity? Toward a theorization of justice in water governance,” Water International, 39(2): 233-245.
2013 Tom Perreault, “Dispossession by accumulation? Mining, water and the nature of enclosure on the Bolivian Altiplano” accepted for publication in Antipode, 45(5): 1050-1069.
2013 Tom Perreault, “Nature and nation: the territorial logics of hydrocarbon governance in Bolivia,” in Subterranean Struggles: New Geographies of Extractive Industries in Latin America, Anthony Bebbington and Jeffrey Bury (editors), University of Texas Press, pp. 67-90.
2013 Tom Perreault, “Reworking the spaces of indigeneity: the Bolivian ayllu and lowland autonomy movements compared” (with Barbara Green), accepted for publication in Environment and Planning D:Society and Space, 31: 43-60.
2013 Tom Perreault,“¿Despojo por acumulación? Minería, agua, y justicia social en el Altiplano boliviano,” In Aguas Robadas: Despojo Hídrico y Movilización Social, Aline Arroyo and Rutgerd Boelens (eds.), Quito: Abya Yala and Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, pp. 187-206.
2013 Tom Perreault, Sarah Wraight and Meredith Perreault, “Injusticia ambiental en el estado de Nueva York, EEUU: Una perspectiva integradora,” In Aguas Robadas: Despojo Hídrico y Movilización Social, Aline Arroyo and Rutgerd Boelens (eds.), Quito: Abya Yala and Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, pp. 243-264.
2012 Tom Perreault, Sarah Wraight and Meredith Perreault, “Environmental injustice in the Onondaga Lake waterscape, New York State, USA” Water Alternatives, 5(2): 485-506.
2012 Tom Perreault, “Extracting justice: Natural gas, indigenous mobilization and the Bolivian state.” In Transnational governmentality and resource extraction: Indigenous peoples, mutlinational corporations, multinational institutions and the state, Terence Gomez and Suzana Sawyer (eds.), London: Palgrave, pp. 75-102.
2011 Tom Perreault, “Las contradicciones estructurales y sus implicaciones para la justicia hídrica:Pensamientos incompletos,” in Justicia Hídrica: Acumulación, Conflicto y Acción Social,Rutgerd Boelens, Leontien Cremers and Margreet Zwarteveen (eds.), Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos/PUCP, pp. 67-77.
2010 Tom Perreault, “Conflictos del gas y su gobernanza: El caso de los Guaraní de Bolivia” Anthropologica, 28 (suplemento 1): 139-162.
2010 Tom Perreault, “Michael Watts” In P. Hubbard, R. Kitchen, and G. Valentine (eds.), Key Contemporary Thinkers on Space and Place 2nd Edition, London: Sage, pp. 454-460.
2010 Tom Perreault and Gabriela Valdivia, “Hydrocarbons, popular protest and national imaginaries: Ecuador and Bolivia in comparative context” Geoforum, 41(5): 689-699.
2010 Tom Perreault “El capitalismo, la naturaleza y la identidad social: Una teorización incompleta.” In H. Vélez Galeano (ed.), Justicia Hídrica: 7 Ensayos Como Aportes para Articular las Luchas, Bogotá, Colombia: CENSAT Agua Vida, Amigos de la Tierra Colombia, pp. 67-79.
2010 Rutgerd Boelens, Rocio Bustamante and Tom Perreault, “Networking strategies and struggles for water control: from water wars to mobilizations for day-to-day water rights defense,” In Out of the Mainstream Water Rights, Politics and Identity, Rutgerd Boelens, David Getches and Armando Guevera Gil (eds.), (London and Washington, DC: Earthscan), pp. 281-306.
2009 Tom Perreault, “Environment and development,” in Companion to Environmental Geography. Noel Castree, David Demeritt, Diana Liverman and Bruce Rhoads (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 442-460.
2009 Gavin Bridge and Tom Perreault, “Environmental governance,” in Companion to Environmental Geography. Noel Castree, David Demeritt, Diana Liverman and Bruce Rhoads (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 475-497.
2009 Tom Perreault, “Assessing the limits of neoliberal environmental governance in Bolivia,” in Beyond Neoliberalism in Latin America? John Burdick, Philip Oxhorn and Ken Roberts (eds.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 135-156.
2008 Tom Perreault, “Popular protest and unpopular policies: state restructuring, resource conflict and social justice in Bolivia” In EnvironmentalJustice in Latin America. David Carruthers (ed.), Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 239-262.
2008 Tom Perreault, “Custom and contradiction: Rural water governance and the politics of usos y costumbres in Bolivia's irrigators' movement,” Annals of theAssociation of American Geographers, 98(4): 834-854.
2008 Thomas Perreault, “Geographical perspectives on Latin American social movements: a review and critique,” Geography Compass, 2(5): 1363-1385.
2008 Tom Perreault, “Natural Gas, Indigenous Mobilization, and the Bolivian State” Identities, Conflict and Cohesion Programme Paper No. 12, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), 27pp.
2007 Thomas Perreault, “De la 'guerra del agua' a la 'guerra del gas': gobernabilidad de recursos, neoliberalismo, y protesta popular en Bolivia.” In Carlos Crespo and Susan Spronk and (eds.), Depsués de las Guerras del Agua en Bolivia, La Paz, CESU-UMSS/ Plural Editores, pp. 147-182.
2006 Thomas Perreault, “Reestructuración del estado y las políticas de escala de la gestión de agua rural en Bolivia,” in PolíticasHídricas y Derechos Campesinos e Indígenas, edited by Rutgerd Boelens (Lima, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos/ Quito, Abya Yala).
2006 Thomas Perreault, “From the Guerra del Agua to the Guerra del Gas: Resource governance, neoliberalism, and popular protest in Bolivia,” Antipode, 38(1): 150-172.
2005 Thomas Perreault, “Why chacras (swidden gardens) persist: Agrobiodiversity, food security, and cultural identity in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” Human Organization, 64(4): 327-339.
2005 Thomas Perreault, “State restructuring and the scale politics of rural water governance in Bolivia,” Environment and Planning A, 37(2): 263-284.
2005 Thomas Perreault and Patricia Martin, “Geographies of neoliberalism in Latin America,” (guest editorial and introduction to special issue), Environment and Planning A, 37(2): 191-201.
2004 Thomas Perreault, “Michael Watts” In P. Hubbard, R. Kitchen, and G. Valentine (eds.), Key Contemporary Thinkers on Space and Place, London: Sage, pp. 323-329.
2003 Thomas Perreault, “Social capital, development, and indigenous politics in Ecuadorian Amazonia,” Geographical Review, 93(3): 328-349.
2003 Thomas Perreault, “'A people with our own identity': toward a cultural politics of development in Ecuadorian Amazonia,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21(5): 583-606.
2003 Thomas Perreault, “Changing places: transnational networks, ethnic politics, and community development in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” Political Geography, 22(1): 61-88.
2003 Thomas Perreault, “Making space: community organization, agrarian change, and the politics of scale in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” Latin American Perspectives, 30(1): 96-121.
2003 J. Montgomery Roper, Thomas Perreault and Patrick Wilson, “Indigenous transformational movements in contemporary Latin America,” (introduction to special edited issue), Latin American Perspectives, 30(1): 5-22.
2001 Thomas Perreault, “Developing identities: indigenous mobilization, rural livelihoods, and resource access in Ecuadorian Amazonia,” Ecumene, 8(4): 381-413.
2001 Anthony Bebbington and Thomas Perreault, “Vidas rurales y acceso a recursos naturales: El caso Guamote,” In A. Bebbington, and V.H. Torres (eds.), Capital Social en los Andes, Quito: Abya Yala, pp. 69-104.
2001 Thomas Perreault, Anthony Bebbington and Thomas Carroll, “Organizaciones de riego y la formación de capital social: El caso Cayambe,” In A. Bebbington, and V.H. Torres (eds.), Capital Social en los Andes, Quito: Abya Yala, pp. 105-139.
1999 Anthony Bebbington and Thomas Perreault, “Social capital, development and access to resources in highland Ecuador,” Economic Geography, 75(4): 395-418.
1998 Thomas Perreault, Anthony J. Bebbington and Thomas F. Carroll, “Indigenous irrigation organizations and the formation of social capital in northern highland Ecuador,” Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers Yearbook, 24: 1-15.
1996 Thomas Perreault, “Nature preserves and community conflict: a case study in highland Ecuador,” Mountain Research and Development, 16(2): 167-175.
Interviews and Talks
Listen to an interview on
the Global Water Crisis, which aired March 18, 2018
Watch an interview I
did last in 2017, when I was Elisée Reclus Chair in Geography at the Colegio de
Michoacán, Mexico
(Published on Mar 26, 2018 by the Centro de Estudios en Geografia
Humana ColMich, Spanish language)
Watch my plenary address at the 2014 ENTITLE conference on Latin American Political Ecology, Santiago, Chile
(Published on Jan 14, 2016 by PoliticalEcology.eu, Spanish language)
Listen to an interview I did on KGOU (Norman, Oklahoma) about
mining in Latin America
Listen to a talk I gave in Colombia (Published on Nov 5, 2011 by Encuentro Internacional Agua y Economia, Spanish language)
Advising
I am committed to advising young scholars, and to mentoring the next generation of critical intellectuals. I welcome inquiries from potential advisees whose research interests include political ecology, environmental justice, environmental governance, social movements, and/or international development, particularly in Latin America.
Current doctoral students
Akemi Inamoto, PhD program, 2017-present (dissertation topic: feminist political ecologies of agriculture in Colombia).
Ainhoa Mingolarra, PhD program, 2017-presesnt (dissertation topic: water governance in Latin America and the Caribbean).
- Miguel Contreras, PhD program 2013-present (dissertation topic: social movement activism and regionalism in Chile). Funded by a Fulbright Fellowship and a Becas Chile fellowship (CONICYT).
- Manuela Ruiz, PhD program in Geography (dissertation topic: perceptions of identity and social class among campesino youth in Colombia); MA in Geography, Syracuse University, 2015 (thesis title: “In search of Ordenamiento Ambiental Territorial in
the Peasant Reserve Zones of Colombia”).
Current master's students
Former doctoral students
- Alejandro Camargo, PhD Geography, graduated with distinction, May 2016 (dissertation title: “Disastrous waters, renascent lands: Politics and agrarian transformations in post-disaster Colombia”). Dissertation research funded by a COLCIENCIAS
Francisco José de Caldas research fellowship (Government of Colombia). Currently post-doctoral fellow, Université de Montréal, Québec.
- Emily Billo, PhD Geography, graduated December 2012 (dissertation title: “Competing sovereignties: Oil extraction, corporate social responsibility, and indigenous peoples in Ecuador”). Dissertation research funded by a National Science
Foundation DDRI grant and an Inter-American Foundation fellowship. Now Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Bucknell University.
- Elvin Delgado, PhD, Geography, graduated May 2012 (dissertation title: “Spaces of socio-ecological distress: Fossil fuels, solar salt, and fishing communities in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela.”) Dissertation research funded by Fulbright-IIE
grant. Now Assistant Professor, Central Washington University.
- Keith Lindner, PhD Geography, graduated with distinction, December 2012 (dissertation title: “Returning the Commons: Resource Access and Environmental Governance in San Luis, Colorado”). Dissertation funded by a UC Berkeley Community
Forestry and Environmental Research Partnerships Dissertation Fellowship and a National Science Foundation DDRI grant ). Now postdoctoral researcher, SUNY College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry, Syracuse, New York.
- Beatriz Bustos Gallardo, PhD Geography, graduated May 2010 (dissertation title: “Geographies of knowledge production in a neoliberal setting: The case of Los Lagos region, Chile”). Now Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Universidad
de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
- Matthew Himley, PhD Geography, graduated with distinction, May 2010 (dissertation title: “Frontiers of Capital: Mining, Mobilization, and Resource Governance in Andean Peru.” Dissertation research funded by Fulbright-Hays grant); MA
Geography, graduated with distinction, August, 2005 (MA thesis title: “The politics of land and forest: nature conservation in highland Ecuador”). Now Assistant Professor, Illinois State University.
Former master's students
- Anna Van de Grift, MA in Geography, August 2017 (thesis title: “Participation or conformity: Peruvian water governance, law and the failed attempt to establish a water basin council”).
- Andria Aguilar, MA program, graduated with distinction, May 2017 (thesis title:" Quinoa or quinua? Political ecologies of organic production in an international commodity chain").
- Marian Turniawan, MA in Geography, May 2015 (thesis title: “Constructing a Counter-Discourse: The Politics of Knowledge Production at the Latin American School of Agroecology”).
- Catherine Adams, MA Geography / MPA (Master of Public Administration), graduated May 2003 (thesis title: “Defending our place: protest on the Southside of Syracuse”).
- Barbara Green, MA Geography, graduated December 2010 (thesis title: “Capitalism in a poncho: social movements, hydrocarbons development, and contested national identities in Bolivia).
- Mike Kantor, MA program, graduated Geography 2012 (thesis title: “Banking on the impossible: The political life of wetlands in southern Louisana”).
- Aman Luthra, MA Geography / MPA (Master of Public Administration), graduated December 2004 (thesis title: “Revisiting Shangri-la: landscape representation and the politics of development in Bhutan”).
- Flavia Rey de Castro, MA program, Geography graduated 2013 (thesis title: "Water politics: Governance, conflict and vulnerability in Andean Peru").
- Sandra Sánchez, MA Geography, graduated December 2007 (thesis title: “Community-based (eco) tourism: indigenous livelihood-development strategies in the Ecuadorian Amazon”).
- Mauri Stott, MA Geography / MAPA (Master of Arts in Public Administration), graduated December 2003 (thesis title: “Hanging in the balance: sustainable development and politics of scale on the lower Chesapeake Bay, tidewater Virginia”).
Current undergraduate thesis advisees
Former undergraduate thesis advisees
- Rachel Bass, BAInternational Relations, graduated May 2016 with University Honors (Thesis title: “Postcolonial discourses of gender and development in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region”).
- Haley Kulikowsky, BA, International Relations, graduated May 2016 with University Honors. (Thesis title: “Ecuador’s Yasuní-ITT program: a post neoliberal policy?”).
- Emily
Malina, BA International Relations, graduated May 2016 with University Honors. (Thesis title: “Reclaiming Identities: Inter-cultural Bilingual Education in Peru and Bolivia”).
- Amory Hillengas, BA Geography, graduated May 2010 with University Honors and Departmental Distinction (thesis title:” Accessibility in the Syracuse Food Desert”).
- Alexis Sheehan Kinney, BA Geography, graduated May 2010 with University Honors and Departmental Distinction (thesis title: “The Commodification of the Modern Black Man: Examining the Effect of Drug Laws on the New York State Prison
Industrial Complex”).
- Kristin Novak, BA Geography, graduated May 2008 with University Honors (thesis title: “Overfishing and Environmental Justice in Marine Fisheries,” Awarded Best Honors Thesis in the Social Sciences at Syracuse University, 2007-2008).
- Dave Oster, BA Geography, graduated May 2014 with departmental distinction (Thesis title: “Addressing the environmental impact of agriculture: The farm bill and conservation in Central New York”).
- Rose Tardiff, BA Geography, graduated May 2015 with University Honors (Thesis title: "Towards an expansion of the Salt City Harvest farm: Exploring a community farm's impact, challenges, and the agricultural ways and aspirations of its New
American farmers." Awarded Best Honors Thesis in the Social Sciences at Syracuse University, 2014-15).
- Syed Shehtaaz Zaman, BA Geography with Departmental Distinction, graduated May 2010 (thesis title: “The Bangladeshi Miracle: Post-Colonial Bangladesh and the Central Challenges Facing the Political Economy).
Other mentoring
Matías Calderón, Ph.D. student, Anthropology, Instituto de Arqueología y Antropología, Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile (2016-17).
- Xochizeltzin Castañeda Camacho, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Universidad Autónoma de San Luís Potosí, Mexico (ongoing).
Andrea Furnaro, MSc. student, Sociology, Universidad de Chile, Santiago (visiting student, Spring 2015).
Research Interests
Political ecology, environment and development, environmental governance, rural livelihoods, indigenous and campesino social movements, Latin America
Research Projects
I am interested in the relationships between society and environment in Latin America. More specifically, my work focuses on three interrelated themes: (1) resource use and environmental governance; (2) the cultural politics of indigenous and campesino environmental struggles; and (3) rural development and questions of livelihood.
My work examines the complex interactions between social movements, environmental politics, and resource governance in Andean South America. Of particular interest to me is the role of rural peoples’ organizations – regional indigenous federations, irrigators’ associations, grassroots environmental movements, agricultural cooperatives – in mediating resource access and management, as well as national and transnational discourses of development, citizenship and the nation. In Latin America as throughout the world, rural peoples’ organizations play a crucial role not only in accessing resources and markets – and therefore enhancing their members’ livelihood opportunities – but in advancing political and cultural claims, as well as refracting, resisting, and at times reproducing dominant narratives of development and modernization. A central focus of my work is the dialectical relationship between rural peoples' social movements and the institutional arrangements, discourses, and material practices involved in the governance of nature and natural resources.
Current Research:
Water, Mining and Rural Livelihoods in the Bolivian Andes
This project, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship, examines the social and environmental implications of mine-related water contamination in the Department of Oruro, on the Bolivian Altiplano. Centuries of mining activity in the watershed has led to severe contamination of the Desaguadero River and Lakes Uru Uru and Poopó, part of the ecologically unique Titicaca-Desaguadero-Poopó-Salares endorheic (closed basin) hydrological system. This project examines three interrelated phenomena: (1) the ways that severe water contamination shapes the lives and livelihoods of indigenous and campesino populations downstream from mine sites; (2) the structures and processes of environmental governance through which water contamination and mining are managed; and (3) the forms of social mobilization that local populations engage in to seek remediation and compensation from mining companies and the Bolivian state.
Past Projects:
Hydrocarbons Governance, Indigenous Identity and the Nation
This project, funded by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), was commissioned as part of a broader study entitled, “Identity, power and rights” sponsored by the UNRISD. It concerned the political ecologies of natural gas extraction in eastern Bolivia, and the ways that gas development has taken on significance for national, and nationalist, politics. In particular, the project examined the relationship between resource governance, understandings of the nation, and the contentious politics of ethnicity and class in Bolivia.
Water Resources, Neoliberal Reform and Campesino Mobilization
This project, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad fellowship, examined questions of rural water governance, state reform, and campesino politics in the Bolivian highlands. I spent the 2003-04 academic year in Bolivia, researching rural water management (particularly irrigation) in the context of neoliberal state restructuring. I also examined the material and discursive practices and forms of social organization that irrigators’ associations in the Bolivian highlands employ in order to secure access to and manage water resources.
Indigenous Organizations and the Cultural Politics of Rural Development
My doctoral research, funded by a Fulbright IIE grant and an Inter-American Foundation fellowship, examined the organizational histories, discursive shifts, and political practices of a regional indigenous federation and one of its member community associations in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This work may be seen as an institutional ethnography, which traced the roles of and relationship between these organizations in the context of nationalist development practices and ethnic cultural politics since the late 1960s.