September 22, 2015: Faculty Lecture
Sara Shneiderman

IRES Seminar Series

Time: 12:30-1:30 pm

Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall

The Properties of Territory and Terrain: Himalayan Belongings after the 2015 Earthquakes

Sara Shneiderman, Assistant Professor in Anthropology and the Institute of Asian Research

Abstract:

This presentation explores how natural disasters such as earthquakes reshape human experience, drawing upon long-standing ethnographic research in areas of Nepal deeply affected by the Spring 2015 earthquakes. To do so, we must engage with the locality of terrain: Where are the landslide zones? Which road is passable? Where has the water source been dammed? But at the same time, humanitarian responses rely upon national and transnational networks, with flows of money and information mediated by the politics of territory and sovereignty: Who can raise funds? Where will they be deposited? Who is responsible for ensuring consistent needs assessment across the disaster zone, and organizing coordinated responses? Taken together, these questions begin to suggest how people affected by such events are compelled to reorient practices of place and belonging in relation to suddenly changed landscapes, both environmental and political.

This work-in-progress presentation joins my ongoing research about state restructuring in Nepal and Himalayan notions of “territory”—a concept that in English links the multiple scales of individual land-ownership, communal emplacement in locality, and belonging and ownership of sovereign space at the national level—with recent firsthand observations of life in Nepal’s central-eastern Dolakha district after the earthquake. I welcome feedback as I work toward developing new frameworks for analysis that can accommodate both place and resource-based understandings of such dynamics and sociocultural ones.

Bio:

Sara Shneiderman is Assistant Professor in Anthropology and the Institute of Asian Research at UBC. A socio-cultural anthropologist working in the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India, and China’s Tibetan Autonomous Region, her research explores the relationships between political discourse, ritual action, and cross-border mobility in producing ethnic identities and shaping social transformation. She is the author of Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Current research projects include an ethnography of “post-conflict” state restructuring in Nepal, with a focus on citizenship, territory, and religiosity, and an exploration of trans-Himalayan citizenship across the historical and contemporary borders of India, China, and Nepal.

Dayna Rachowski

Dayna Rachowski

MA Student
IRES Student Society Community Engagement Coordinator, 2023-2024

Bio

March 10, 2016: Faculty Lecture
Jessica Dempsey

IRES Seminar Series

Time: 12:30-1:30 pm

Location: AERL Theatre (room 120), 2202 Main Mall

The end of cheap nature?

Abstract:

One thing that neoclassical economists and critics of capitalism agree on is that status quo economic processes are adept ‘externalization machines’, dependent on enormous amounts of unpaid or incredibly cheap nonhuman labour (what Jason Moore helpfully terms ‘cheap nature’). What can we learn about the prospect of ending cheap nature from efforts to make nature visible in political economic processes, from attempts to create what I call “enterprising nature”? This talk weaves through three phases of enterprising nature: biosprospecting, ecosystem carbon markets, and my current research on conservation finance. The difficulties and challenges of bringing these strategies to scale provide evidence that cheap nature may be better conceptualized as integral to contemporary capitalism, not as an unfortunate blind spot or externality awaiting the right evidence or metric to facilitate correction. This all leads me to ask more questions, and I hope to spend some time discussing future lines of research with those gathered at the seminar.

Bio:

Jessica Dempsey is a new professor in the Department of Geography at UBC as of January 2016. Her research interests include global biodiversity politics, ecosystem services, and financial risk and biodiversity. With the CBD Alliance, she has participated in over a dozen major negotiations of biodiversity law and policy and worked with many NGOs and social movements to develop analysis and position papers on global biodiversity issues. She has published articles in leading geography and political ecology journals, including Environment and Planning A, Geoforum, and Progress in Human Geography. Her forthcoming book titled Enterprising Nature (Wiley-Blackwell), traces the rise of economic and market oriented approaches to global biodiversity conservation.

Note: Unfortunately, the video sound quality is not consistent throughout the whole video. We sincerely apologize.

Yuqing Cheng

MSc Student
IRES Seminar Coordinator, 2023-24

Contact Details

carolcheng102[at]gmail[dot]com

Bio

Yuqing is an MSc student at the Institute of Resources, Environment, and Sustainability supervised by Dr. Stephanie Chang. Her research interests include climate adaptation, nature-based solutions, and risk perception. Her research explores people’s risk perceptions of coastal flooding and how they influence people’s attitudes toward incorporating coastal green infrastructure in flood management. More specifically, her research aims to uncover how immigration plays a role in people’s flood risk perceptions and support for different protective measures. She is part of the Living With Water research project, which works on advancing community adaptation to sea level rise and flooding in British Columbia’s South Coast.

Yuqing grew up in Hunan, China, and she graduated with an Honours BSc in Natural Resources Conservation from the University of British Columbia (UBC). During her time at UBC, she worked as a research assistant at the UBC National Parks Research Centre focusing on the impacts of Covid-19 on ecotourism in China. She was also a volunteer for the Education and Outreach team at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. In her free time, she enjoys swimming, biking, practicing guitar, and reading.

Daniel L. Forrest

PhD Student
IRES Student Society Treasurer, 2022-2023
IRES Seminar Coordinator, 2023-2024

Contact Details

Phone: 778-917-6641

Emails: daniel.forrest@ubc.ca ; danlf@student.ubc.ca ; daniel.l.forrest@gmail.com

Twitter: @DL_Forrest

Research Interests

Urban Ecology, Biodiversity, Sustainability, Environmental Justice, Conservation

Bio

Urbanization is now a leading cause of biodiversity loss, and access to the limited biodiversity and its benefits that remain in cities is inequitably distributed among people. I am an MSc-PhD fast-track student in the CHANS and M2L2 Labs interested in understanding the hidden ways that human activities in cities may undermine nature and its benefits, so that we can change these relationships to make cities more biodiverse, sustainable, and equitable. In my dissertation, I’ll explore the ways that abundant food waste and turf grass lawns may undermine the diversity of birds in Vancouver, using observations, statistical and conceptual models, field experiments, and interviews. I hope that this research will help identify interventions (e.g., private yard meadows, changes to waste bin designs) that disproportionately amplify urban biodiversity. I’ll be working closely with the City of Vancouver to help shape and apply my research and its findings.

Featured Publications

McManus, L. C., D. L. Forrest, E. W. Tekwa, D. E. Schindler, M. A. Colton, M. M. Webster, T. E. Essington, S. R. Palumbi, P. J. Mumby, and M. L. Pinsky. 2021. Evolution and connectivity influence the persistence and recovery of coral reefs under climate change in the Caribbean, Southwest Pacific, and Coral Triangle. Global Change Biology 27:4307–4321. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15725

Colton, M. A., L. C. McManus, D. E. Schindler, P. J. Mumby, S. R. Palumbi, M. M. Webster, T. E. Essington, H. E. Fox, D. L. Forrest, S. R. Schill, F. J. Pollock, L. B. DeFilippo, E. W. Tekwa, T. E. Walsworth, and M. L. Pinsky. 2022. Coral conservation in a warming world must harness evolutionary adaptation. Nature Ecology & Evolution 6:1405–1407. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01854-4

Forrest, D. L., F. Muatiche, C. Riaco, M. K. Gonder, and D. T. Cronin. 2017. Primate Communities Along a Protected Area Border: A Two-site Comparison of Abundance and Hunting Response in Bioko, Equatorial Guinea. African Primates 12:23–36.

Carol Tatiana Chamorro-Vargas

MSc Program
IRES Student Society Trip Coordinator, 2023-24

Contact Details

caroltatiana06[at]gmail[dot]com

Personal Website: https://www.youtube.com/@caroltrips3505

Professional Profile: https://worcslab.ubc.ca/people/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-tatiana-chamorro-vargas-38b2a2127/

Bio

Tatiana Chamorro (she/her) is an MSc student in the Working to Restore Connectivity and Sustainability (WoRCS) Lab at IRES and is supervised by Dr. Claire Kremen. Her research focuses on the scaling up of sustainable cattle ranching practices in Colombia, as she is highly interested in biodiversity conservation and ecology. She is a recipient of the Philip A. Jones Fellowship 2022-2023. She is also the trip coordinator for the RES Student Society.

Prior to joining IRES, Tatiana received her BSc in Biology from the National University of Colombia. Her previous research was focused on the Knowledge and relationship of a rural community in Quininí, Colombia with the herpetofauna of their region and on How the microhabitat and activity pattern of an Andean lizard specie (Stenocercus trachycephalus) changed across an altitudinal gradient. She was the coordinator of the Herpetology research group of the National University of Colombia (Herpetos UN) under the supervision of Dr Martha Lucia Calderón Espinoza during the year 2020. Between degrees, Tatiana worked on scientific divulgation and as a Teaching Assistant at the Data Science for All program in Colombia. In her free time, Tatiana enjoys traveling, playing sports, reading, and making youtube videos for her traveling vlog channel carol_trips.

IRES Student Society Bio

My name is Tatiana, I love strawberries, hiking, and traveling. My role in the IRES student society is Trip Coordinator, which means that I will plan the logistics of the IRES spring and fall trips together with the other Trip Coordinator Charly Philipps. We will plan where to go, what activities to do, how to get there, where to stay, and a lot more. Our top priorities are to make the trips accessible, inclusive, and affordable for all and to give you the chance to connect in a non-academic environment with the IRES community. We are always open to suggestions or ideas so feel free to contact us if you have any questions or ideas regarding the trips so we can make the trips a unique experience for you.

Charly Lynn Phillips

MA with Daniel Steel
Scientific Evaluator at the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Public Health Risk Sciences Division
IRES Student Society Trip Coordinator, 2023-24

Research Bio

Charly is an MA student at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) and is supervised by Dr. Daniel Steel. Her research interests are broadly centred on the role of values in policy-relevant debates surrounding sustainable agriculture, especially those regarding meat consumption and animal agriculture.

Prior to beginning her studies at IRES, she worked as a Scientific Evaluator at the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Public Health Risk Sciences Division for two years. There, she was part of a knowledge synthesis and mathematical modelling research team focused on addressing antimicrobial resistance in animal agri-food systems. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and has previously worked in research groups at The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, ON) in various areas of computational biology.

In her free time, Charly plays violin and piano and loves discovering, dissecting, and discussing new music. She is passionate about knowledge translation and community-engaged research as components of climate activism. In her research, work, activism, and daily life, she takes responsibility for ongoing self-education and action regarding decolonization and equity.

IRES Student Society Bio

My name is Charly and I love music, cooking, and being outside! Along with Tatiana, I’m one of the Trip Coordinators for the IRES Student Society. The focus of our role is planning two trips (one in fall, one in spring) so that we can explore the province together, make memories, and bond outside of an academic context. Our top priority is making these trips inclusive, accessible, and fun for everyone and we are always open to suggestions, so please reach out if you have any questions or concerns!

September 22, 2015: Faculty Lecture
Sara Shneiderman