Andrew S. Mathews Homepage
Assistant Professor,
My research focuses on the culture of environmental institutions and the links between local communities and national and global levels of power and knowledge. I am currently completing a book on conservation and forest management in Mexico, focusing on the history and culture of state forestry institutions and of indigenous forest communities in the state of Oaxaca. In this book I combine theories of statemaking with science and technology studies to argue that the production and management of ignorance are as important as knowledge to the assertion of state power.
In addition to my concern with human/environment relations, I have research and teaching interests in anthropology of bureaucracy and financial markets, anthropology of law and illegality, political ecology, environmental history, landscape history and visual representations of nature, sociology of knowledge, science and technology studies and state building.
Climate change policy in Mexico
In this new project I look at efforts by government officials and scientists to stabilize knowledge of climate change, make it credible to skeptical audiences, and motivate policy changes throughout the Mexican state. This research participates in current dialogues between anthropology of the state, environmental anthropology and science studies, and seeks to re-theorize understandings of knowledge and power, by paying particular attention to the power of publics who may refuse to believe performances of official knowledge.
Research and Writing
This picture shows a valley near the Etruscan city of Cortona, Italy, where I spent a good part of my childhood. This valley has one of the best developed terrace systems in the world and has been cultivated for at least 2,500 years. My research has been inspired by my belief that long term environmental and social sustainability of the kind I saw in Italy is possible in other places.
