2004-2005 Annual Report of the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group (CAPE)
2008-2009 Annual Report of the Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group (CAPE) to the AAG Council
1. Officers
a. Continuing CAPE Officers for 2008-2010 (terms end April, 2010)
Chair
William Moseley, Macalester College
At Large Councilors
Paul Laris, California State University at Long Beach
Trevor Birkenholtz, Rutgers University
Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Indiana University
Student Representatives
Leif Brottem, University of Wisconsin – Madison
Julio Postigo, University of Texas – Austin
Steve Aldrich, Michigan State University
Jason Davis, University of California at Santa Barbara
b. Outgoing officer (term ended April 2009)
Secretary/Treasurer (2007-2009)
J. Chris Brown, University of Kansas
c. New Officer (elected at business meeting)
Secretary/Treasurer (2009-20011)
Brent McCusker, West Virginia University
2. AAG Website statement
The statement and contact information that appears on the AAG Website is accurate.
3. Accomplishments
a. Las Vegas Meeting: CAPE remains one of the most active specialty groups in the AAG. There were 64 CAPE sponsored or co-sponsored paper sessions and panels at the Las Vegas meeting which is one more than we had for the Boston meeting. Few specialty groups have as many sponsored sessions as CAPE, and it reflects the youthfulness and activity of our subfield. We continue to implement a formal process where proposed sponsorship for sessions are cleared through the CAPE Chair, although few requests are denied. We look to be on tract to be very active again at the 2010 meeting in Washington, DC.
b. Communications: James McCarthy (Pennsylvania State University) continues to be in charge of the CAPE Listserve (http://lists.psu.edu/archives/aag-cesg-l.html) which is running smoothly. He has been on sabbatical during the academic year 08-09, but asked his colleague and fellow CAPE member Petra Tschakert to handle the Listserve management in his absence.
Tony Abbott (Stetson University) continues to maintain the content of the webpage and the Newsletter (CEN). The CAPE webpage URL remains the same: http://www.stetson.edu/artsci/cape/index.php.
c. Robert McC. Netting Award: The committee considered six nominations for this award. Piers Blaikie, professor emeritus at the University of East Anglia, was the 2009 Robert McC. Netting award recipient. The award is given in recognition of distinguished research and professional activities that bridge geography and anthropology. The author of the nominating letter for Piers Blaikie wrote:
“The life-long work and intellectual history of Piers Blaikie is both a tribute to and an alternative means to discover what Political Ecology [PE] is today. Piers Blaikie’s canon also encompasses research and writing on natural disasters and risk, development policy and practice, international environmental policy, conservation and biodiversity, AIDS in Africa, livelihoods, and books on India and Nepal. His long and productive career has evolved from pioneering foundational texts, through transdisciplinary exchanges in the fields of geography, development studies, anthropology, and policy, to constructive and critical engagement with the postmodern turn, and questions of epistemology and methodology. In essence, Piers Blaikie has been a central actor in both the theory and practice of PE, and an appreciation of his work seems appropriate at this time.”
d. James M. Blaut Award: The committee considered two nominations for this award. Paul Robbins, University of Arizona, was the winner of the 2009 Blaut award. The award is given in ‘recognition of innovative scholarship in cultural and political ecology.’ Paul was awarded for his 2007 book: Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. The author of the nominating letter for this book wrote:
“Lawn People, by Paul Robbins, represents the very best work one can find in political ecology today. It is a well-written, engaging, and provocative book that demonstrates the power of contemporary political ecology to help us understand human created environments, their persistence as well as their fragility. Robbins deploys a political economy approach, informed and reinvigorated by theories of the subject, within a clearly rigorous and innovative research project meant to address the emergence, growth, and maintenance of both lawns and ‘lawn people’ in North America… [It further]… makes clear that political ecology’s recent turn to the ‘First World’ can be exceedingly productive and insightful.”
e. Student Paper Award: CAPE received eight papers for its 2009 paper competition. The number of submissions for this award was up this year from previous years. The 2009 CAPE paper award, with its cash prize of $150, went to: Matthew Himley, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Geography, Syracuse University for his paper entitled entitled “ON METHOD AND METRIC: THE POLITICS OF ASSESSING MINING’S ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS IN ANDEAN PERU.”
f. Student Field Study Awards: CAPE received nine applications for its field award. We decided to grant two awards this year given the high quality of the submissions and our budgetary situation. The 2009 CAPE Student Field Study Awards, each of $600, went to:
1) Brittany Davis, Department of Geography & Regional Development, University of Arizona, for her study “Unintended Ecologies of Marine Protection: Exploring livelihood adaptations and ecological outcomes in Quintana Roo, Mexico.”
and
2) Zoe Pearson, Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, for her study entitled “Oil, Conflict and Territory in Yasuní National Park, Ecuador>”
g. Synopsis of Business Meeting Minutes:
After electing a new secretary/treasurer, sharing general AAG news and presenting awards, a discussion followed about CAPE-sponsored panel/session ideas for next year. The idea was shared about teaming up with other specialty groups to fund a keynote speaker for a special session, perhaps with some reception on or off site. The invited speaker need not be from geography, and we should think of people from the DC area. Various ideas also were discussed for panels, including: emerging research themes in political ecology; political ecology and public policy; evolving connections between political ecology and other subdisciplines; ethics and justice; research ethics; and the use of film in cultural and political ecology.
4. CAPE Membership
CAPE membership is at 634, down from 713 the previous year (which was an all-time high). Membership figures fluctuate throughout the year, but overall these membership data are very positive and reflect a vibrant, strong, and ‘young’ specialty group that continues to attract faculty and a large number of students.
5. Financial Report
The CAPE account is held and administered by the AAG Comptroller, and overseen by the CAPE Treasurer/Secretary.
As of March, 2009 (shortly before the 2009 AAG) the balance of the CAPE SG account was $3,663.37. If we consider monies disbursed for the student field awards (2 x $600) and the student paper award ($150), then the remaining balance after the meeting would have been $2313.37. Assuming continuing inflow of dues over the year, we are on solid financial footing and could (financially) sponsor events at the 2009 AAG should an occasion present itself.
The policy of $6 dues for non-students and $1 dues for students remains in effect.
6. Special Requests/Questions for Council
None.
Respectfully submitted on June 18, 2009.
William G. Moseley
CAPE Chair, 2008-2010
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