Muda da Maré (Change of the Tides)
My research in Pernambuco explores how Afro-Brazilian fishing and farming communities navigate (and grieve) changing access to the ocean and mangroves, disappearing marine life, and their increasingly polluted territories.
Read my recent piece in Anthropology and Environment Society’s Engagement Blog
As a finalist for the 2021 Rappaport Prize, I was recently invited to contribute a short piece to the Anthropology and Environment Society’s Engagement Blog. Click here to read about my Rappaport Prize paper on ecological grief and environmental injustice in Pernambuco.
Lungs of the Earth?
In light of ongoing social and ecological crises in Brazil, fellow members of the Brazil Natural Resource Governance Initiative reflect on pathways to equitable environmental governance.
Check out the digital story I created in collaboration with Raul Basílio, Pedro Paulo Soares, and other members of the Brazil Natural Resource Governance Initiative.
Thanks to all my US and Brazilian colleagues for their thoughtful participation!
Larissa Lourenço, Pesquisadora do Pará
Evandro Neves, Pesquisador do Maranhão e Pará
Cydney Seigerman, Anthropologist working in Ceará
Bruna Borges, Pesquisadora do Pará
Bruno Ubiali, Anthropologist working in Acre
Dr. Don Nelson, Anthropologist working in Ceará
Eduardo Monteiro, Pesquisador do Pará
Dr. Greg Thaler, Political Scientist working in Pará, Mato Grosso, & Brasília
When Disinformation Makes Sense
Disinformation like the “war on coal” is often used to justify environmental destruction in Central Appalachia, but do communities believe it?
Disinformation is often used to justify environmental injustices in Central Appalachia.
Was there really a war on coal?
Recent scholarship indicates that populist rhetoric can profoundly shape commonsense understandings of global energy crises. While scholars often depict rural, working-class communities as objects of right-wing disinformation, post-truths, and alternative facts, how rural communities interpret or experience populist narratives is far from adequately understood.
My recent article published in Economic Anthropology examines coal industry recession in coal-producing areas of Appalachian Kentucky that contributed to ten thousand job losses since 2010. Amid the downturn, politicians and pro-coal lobby groups blamed the slump on an alleged “war on coal.” My research illustrates how neoliberal disinformation underpins war-on-coal narratives claiming that deregulating industry is the only way communities can save the industry and access economic well-being.
Pro-coal lobby groups and politicians in Appalachian Kentucky blame industry recession on an alleged “war on coal.”
Drawing from qualitative interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis, I explore how war-on-coal disinformation has become a commonsense explanation for many dealing with the coal industry recession. While findings suggest that the war on coal “makes sense” for many living in coal-mining communities, this does not indicate an indeterminate embrace of the industry or pro-coal rhetoric. Communities negotiate commonsense narratives against complicated relationships with the industry, the many dangers of mining, and the challenges coal poses for alternative economic futures.
Check out my full article in Economic Anthropology here.