ANDREW S. MATHEWS
Department of Anthropology, University of California Santa Cruz
325,Social Sciences 1, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
amathews@ucsc.edu; (831) 459-2080
Positions Held
Full Professor, Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz, July 2022- present
Associate Professor of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California. July 2012 to July 2022/
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California. July 2007 to 2012.
Research Leave from Florida International University/Research Affiliate, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University. July 2006-July 2007.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Florida International University, Miami, Florida. August 2004 to 2007.
Education
Ph.D., Environmental Anthropology, Yale University (Joint between departments of Anthropology and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies) 1997-2004.
Dissertation Title: Forestry Culture: Knowledge, Institutions and Power in Mexican Forestry, 1926-2001. With Distinction.
M.Phil., Anthropology, Yale University, 2000.
M.Sc., Forestry and Its Relation to Land Use, Oxford University, England, 1995.
B.Sc., Philosophy and Physics, Leeds University, England, 1991.
Research Interests
Environmental anthropology, environmental history, forests and forestry in Mexico and Italy, historical ecology, natural history, community forest management, statemaking, Latin America and climate change policy, ecological modeling, anthropology of bureaucracy, political anthropology
Awards and Fellowships
Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Studies Grant ($10,000), 2018-2019
UCSC, COR Faculty Research Grant ($7,000), 2015-2016
UCHRI, Research Cluster on the Anthropocene ($10,000) across 2015-2017
UCSC, COR Faculty Research Grant ($6,000), 2013-2014
UCHRI Conference Grant ($12,000 with local matching funds), Fall 2010
UCSC Division of Social Sciences Research Grant, 2011, ($50,000)
UCSC, COR Travel Grant, ($2000) Summer 2009.
UC-MEXUS/CONACYT Collaborative Grant, ($25,000) 2008-2009
UCSC, COR Travel Grant, ($2000) Summer 2008.
LACC Center, Florida International University, Travel Grant. Spring 2006.
Title VI funding, Center For Transnational and Comparative Studies, Florida International University, Spring 2006.
FIU Summer Faculty Development Grant, Summer 2005
John Perry Miller Research Grant, Yale University, Summer 2003
Yale Program in Agrarian Studies, Research Grant, Summer 2002.
Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Enders Grant, Summer 2002.
Yale Program in Latin American and Iberian Studies, Travel Grant, Summer 2002.
NSF Science and Technology Studies, Dissertation Improvement Grant, 2000-2001.
Fulbright Garcia Robles Fellowship, 2000-2001.
Yale Center for International and Area Studies Dissertation Research Grant, 2000.
Switzer Environmental Fellowship, 1999-2000.
Yale Tropical Resources Institute Fellowship, Summer 1998.
National Environmental Research Council Scholarship (England), 1994-1995.
Book Prizes
Harold and Margaret Sprout award of the International Studies Association for 2012.
Runner up: Julian Steward Prize of the Environmental Anthropology Association 2013.
Choice Magazine, Outstanding Academic Title, 2012.
Awards
UCSC Division of Social Sciences Golden Apple Prize for teaching excellence 2011.
Books
(2011)“Instituting Nature: Authority, Expertise and Power in Mexican Forests”. MIT Press.
Single Authored Journal Articles or Book Chapters
(2017)“Ghostly forms and forest histories.” In Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Elaine Gan, and Heather Anne Swanson ed: University of Minnesota Press
(2016) Mathews, A. S., and Jessica Barnes, for Special Journal Number on Environmental Futures. Prognosis: Visions of Environmental Futures. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
(2015)Imagining Forest Futures and Climate Change: the Mexican State as Insurance Broker and Story Teller. InClimate Change and Anthropology. M. Dove and J. Barnes, eds. Pp. 199-220. Yale University Press.
(2014) “Scandals, Audits and Fictions: Linking Climate Change to Mexican Forests.” Social Studies of Science(online before print, published June 12, 2013).
(2010) Book Chapter: “Who Speaks for the Trees and the Rain? State Science, Nature Spirits, and Indigenous People in Mexico, 1926–2008.” [Edited Volume from SAR Seminar on Science, Nature and Religion]. Santa Fe, New Mexico. School of Advanced Research Press.
(2009) “Unlikely Alliances: Encounters Between State Science, Nature Spirits, and Indigenous Industrial Forestry in Mexico, 1926 -2008.” Current Anthropology50(1): 75-101.
(2008) “Statemaking, Knowledge and Ignorance: Translation and Concealment in Mexican Forestry Institutions.” American Anthropologist. 110(4): 484-494.
(2006) “Building the Town in the Country: Official Understandings of Fire, Logging and Biodiversity in Oaxaca, Mexico, 1926-2004.” Social Anthropology14(3). 335–359.
(2006). “Ignorancia, Conocimiento y Poder: el Corte de la Madera, el Tráfico Ilegal y las Políticas Forestales en México.” Desacatos 21,(mayo-agosto), 135-160.
(2005) “Power/Knowledge, Power/Ignorance: Forest Fires and the State in Mexico.” Human Ecology 33(6) 795-820.
(2003) “Suppressing Fire and Memory: Environmental Degradation and Political Restoration in the Sierra Juárez of Oaxaca, 1887-2001.” Environmental History8 (1): 77-108.
(2002) “Mexican Forest history: Ideologies of State Building and Resource Use.”
Journal of Sustainable Forestry15(1): 19-30.
Co-Authored Journal Articles
Myanna Lahsen, Andrew Mathews et. al.
(2015) Strategies for changing the intellectual climate. Nature Climate Change5 (May):391-392.
Michael Dove, Jessica Barnes, Andrew Mathews et. al.
(2013) Anthropology’s Contribution to the Study of Climate Change. Nature Climate Change3:541-544.
Book Reviews, Co-Authored Book Chapters and Other Writings
(2015) Review of “Caring for Place: Ecology, Ideology, and Emotion in Traditional Landscape Management by E.N. Anderson.” Journal of Anthropological Research 71(3):423-462.
(2015)Review of “Cultural Forests of the Amazon: A Historical Ecology of People and Their Landscapes by William Balee.” American Anthropologist 117(1):176-177.
(2013)Commentary on “Governing Future Potential Biothreats: Toward an Anthropology of Uncertainty.” by Limor Samimian-Darash. Current Anthropologyno. 54 (1):1-22.
(2009) Commentary on “When Is Housing an Environmental Problem? Reforming Informality in Kathmandu”, by Anne Rademacher.” Current Anthropology50(4):.
(2008) Dove, M. R., A.S. Mathews, K. Maxwell, J. Padwe, A. Rademacher (2008). The Concept of Human Agency in Contemporary Conservation and Development Discourse. Against the Grain: The Vayda Tradition in Human Ecology and Ecological Anthropology. B. J. M. Bradley B. Walters, Paige West, Susan Lees. Walnut Creek (CA), Altamira Press.
(2006) Mathews, A. S. Book Review of “Fields of Power, Forests of Discontent: Culture, Conservation and the State in Mexico. by Nora Haenn”. Journal of Latin American Anthropology11(1): 226-228.
(2006) Dove, Michael R., M. Campos, A.S. Mathews, et. al. “Revisiting the Concept of Western Versus Non-Western Environmental Knowledge.” In Local Science Vs. Global Science: Approaches to Indigenous Knowledge in International Developmented. Paul Sillitoe. Oxford, Berghahn Press.
(2003) Dove, Michael R., M. Campos, A.S. Mathews, et. al. “The Global Mobilization of Environmental Concepts: Problematizing the Western/Non Western divide.” In Nature across cultures: Non-Western views of the environment and nature. ed.Helaine Selin. Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Conference organizing or synergistic activities.
(2017)Co-organizer (with Anna Tsing and Nils Bubandt) of Wenner Gren Symposium Patchy Anthropocene: Frenzies and Afterlives of Violent Simplifications”. Cintra, Portugal, 9/9-9/13
(2018) Co-organizer with Fabio Malfatti. Workshop. Leggere il passato per affrontare il futuro. Antropologia, storia del paesaggio e cambiamenti ambientali globali nei Monti Pisani. Archivio di Stato, Lucca, Italy. June 20
(2014-2018) Organized UCSC component of video seminar with Arhus Research on the
Anthropocene project.
(2017) Invited Graduate Seminar The Politics of Nature in the Anthropocene Oslo University Summer School, August 31-September 5.
(2016-2018) Co-organizer of UCHRI research cluster Race, Violence, Inequality and the Anthropocene
(2011-2016) Various Roles at Science and Justice Research Center (SJRC) UCSC.
Advisory Board 2010-2011, Director 2012-2013, Co-Director 2011-2012,
Acting Director 2014-2015, Co-Director 2015-2016.
(2010) Organizer and fund raiser for interdisciplinary conference
Emerging Terraformations: Climate Change, Geoengineering and Science Fiction, UC Santa Cruz, October.
Conference Activities and Invited Lectures
(2018) Leggere il passato per affrontare il futuro: fuochi, malattie e cambiamenti
climatici sui Monti Pisani. Conference Leggere il passato per affrontare il futuro.
Antropologia, storia del paesaggio e cambiamenti ambientali globali nei Monti
Pisani. Archivio di Stato, Lucca, Italy. June 20.
(2018) With Fabio Malfatti. Shifting Ecological Baselines: Plant Disease, Forest Fires
and Industrialization in the Monti Pisani of Italy. Conference on Woodlands in the Anthropocene. Aarhus University. June 11-13.
(2018) Coming into Noticing: on Being Called to Account by Ancient Trees. InLiving
With Plants. 38th Annual Community Forum, Calgary Institute for the\
Humanities. Calgary. May 18.
(2017) Landscapes, Infrastructures and Futures in Italian Forests. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Washington D.C. December.
(2017) Sensing Disaster and Transformation: Modeling the Dramas of Italian Forest Futures. Invited Lecture, UC Davis, November 20.
(2017) Sensing Disaster and Transformation: Modeling Italian Forest Futures. Workshop onVolatile Futures/Earthly Matters. Center for the Advancement of Public Action, Bennington College. May 26-28, 2017.
(2016) Natural History, Ecological Modeling and Global Environmental Change. Roundtable “Lines of Inquiry: Bounding Life in Indeterminate Times”. Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Minneapolis. Minnesota, November.
(2016) Discussant For: Abduction! Captive Lines of Inquiry. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. Minneapolis, Minnesota. November.
(2016) Time, Matter and Tree Form in Central Italy: Ancien Regime, Nation State, and Global Climate Change. Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers. San Francisco, March 29.
(2016) Climate Change as Utopia and Apocalypse. Utopian Dreaming Conference. Rachel Carson College, UC Santa Cruz. November 6-7.
(2016) Invited Discussant for Book Manuscript workshop on Devices of Wonder manuscript by Andrea Ballesteros. Rice University, Department of Anthropology. September 30.
(2016) Grafting as Political Ritual: Plant-Human sensing and the production of Italian Landscapes. REDO Workshop.Berkeley, California. October 21, 2016.
(2016) Exits from Domestication in Italian Chestnut Worlds: Thinking Dramatically About the Anthropocene. Paper presented at CAS Seminar, Norwegian Academy of Sciences, Oslo, Norway May 10, 2016.
(2015) Anthropology As Natural History: Cultivating Amateurism within Expertise Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Denver. November.
(2015)Domesticating the Carbon Cycle: How people in Italy use trees to think about climate change. CAS Opening Conference, Norwegian Academy of Sciences. Oslo, Norway. September 17.
(2014)Domesticating the Global Carbon Cycle through Italian Forests. Annual Meetings of American Anthropological Association.Washington DC.
(2014)Discussant for Panel: Critically Engaging the Anthropocene. Annual Meetings of American Anthropological Association. Washington DC.
(2014)Burning questions: climate change and forest use in Italy and Mexico. Conference on Social Science Research Frontiers, UC Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz, California. December.
(2014)Modeling Forests and Doing Biomass Energy Politics in Italy. Science and Democracy Network Meetings,Vienna, Austria, June 30, 2014.
(2014)Discussant for William Cronon. Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet. Anthropocene Conference. UC Santa Cruz, May 9, 2014.
(2014)Form, Imagination and the Climate Politics of Italian Forests.
Invited Lecture, Oslo University Department of Anthropology, April 2, 2014.
(2014) Plant Politics: Forests and Climate Change in Italy and Mexico.
Invited Paper, Agrarian Studies Seminar, Yale University. January 31, 2014.
(2013) Landscape Ethnography and Natural History: AURA workshop, Arhus University, Denmark. November 29-30, 2013.
(2013)Imagination and the Arts of Political Expertise: Climate Change and Forest Futures in Mexico. IGLP Mini Conference: “Facts and Futures: Expertise between Science and Law”.Harvard Law School. April 2013.
(2013)Roundtable on Climate Change Adaptation. Annual Meetings of Association of American Geographers American. Los Angeles, California. April 2013.
(2012). Keynote Speech “Arboles de Duda: Autoridad, Conocimiento y Poder en Bosques Mexicanos.” II Congreso de Antropología Social y Etnología, Morelia, Michoacan. Mexico. September 20.
(2012). “Imagining Forest Futures and Climate Change: the Mexican State as Insurance Broker and Story Teller.” Annual Meetings of American Anthropological Association. San Francisco. November 15.
(2012). “Imagining Forest Futures and Climate Change: the Mexican State as Insurance Broker and Story Teller.” Workshop on Anthropology and Climate Change.Yale University, April 2012.
(2012)“Performing the State in Mexican Forests.” Invited Lecture, Indiana University, Center for Latin American Studies. March 2012.
(2011)“Scandals and Nightmares in Mexican Forests: Models, Accounts and Uncertain Climate Futures.” Invited Lecture, Cornell University, Department of Anthropology.
(2011)“Valuing Nightmares in Mexican Forests: Models, Accounts and Uncertain Futures.” Invited Lecture, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology.
(2011)“Conjuring Ownership in Mexican Forests.” Annual Meeting of Association of American Geographers, Seattle, April 12, 2011.
(2011)“Conjuring Forest Property in Mexico.” Law and Society Association Conference. San Francisco, June 5, 2011.
(2011) “Fuego, Memoria y Construccion del Estado en los Bosques de México.” Invited Talk, Conference on Sierra Juarez Environment. Oaxaca, Mexico, April 2011.
(2011)Valuing Apocalypse: Climate Change and Mexican Forests. Invited Lecture, Stanford University, Department of Anthropology.
(2011)“Geoengineering as Terraformation: A Constitutional Convention on the Future.” Annual Meetings of American Anthropological Association. Montreal.
(2011). Discussant for Panel “Making Plans: Expertise, Futures, Histories”. Annual Meetings of American Anthropological Association. Montreal.
(2011)Judge and Discussant for Rappaport Student Prize, Anthropology and Environment Section. Annual Meetings of American Anthropological Association. Montreal.
(2010) “ Making Mexican Forests Public: Climate Change Science, State Making, and Accountability” paper presented at Science and Democracy Network Meeting,Royal Society Kavli Center, Milton Keynes, England, June 30.
(2010) “Carbon Science Fictions and Climate Change in Mexican Forests.” Invited Lecture, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology. April 26.
(2010) “Mexican Forests and Carbon Science Fictions” Invited Lecture, University of California San Diego, Department of Anthropology.April 21.
(2009) “That Warm Feeling of Tree Planting. “Presidential Trees, Reforestation Campaigns, and Climate Change in Mexico. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Philadelphia, November 2009.
(2009) Believing in Forestry and Knowing Rituals: Encounters Between State Science, Nature Spirits, and Indigenous People in Mexico. School of Advanced Research, Advanced Seminar,Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 2009.
(2009) Panel Chair “States and Public Knowledge”, Science and Democracy Network Meeting, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, June 29-July 1
(2008) Presidential Natures and Carbon Science Fictions: Unnatural Natures and Mexican Forests Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. San Francisco, December
(2008) Opaque Transparencies in Mexican Forests: Official Knowledge and Local Concealment. Science and Democracy Network Meetings,Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, June, 2008.
(2007) Speaking, Translating, Silencing: The Travels and Travails of Forestry and Conservation in Mexico. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Washington D.C. November 28-December 1, 2007.
(2007) Opaque Transparencies in Mexican Forests: Trade Offs Between Official Knowledge and Local Concealment. Paper given at workshop: Rethinking Trade-offs: Conservation and the Politics of Knowledge. Center for Integrated Conservation Research, (University of Georgia), Helena, Georgia.
(2007) Industrial Forestry, Nature Spirits, and Forest Protectionism in Mexico SAR Prize Session “Nature, Science and Religion in Latin America” Annual Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association.Montreal, Canada.
(2007) Translation and Concealment in States and Bureaucracies: the Co-production of Knowledge and Ignorance. Invited Lecture, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies,New Haven, Connecticut.
(2007) Statemaking, Knowledge and Ignorance: Translation and Concealment in Mexican Forestry Institutions, Invited Lecture, Anthropology Department, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.
(2007) Statemaking, Knowledge and Ignorance: Translation and Concealment in Mexican Forestry Institutions” Invited Lecture, Anthropology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz.
(2006) Representations of Failure and the Politics of Success: the Culture of the Mexican Forest Service Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 15-19, 2006, San Jose, CA.
(2006) Representations of Failure and the Politics of Success: Conservation, Development, and the Culture of the State in Mexico”, Invited Lecture, ICDE, Clark University,Worcester, MA.
(2006) State Formation and Popular Environmental Politics in Mexico: Desiccation Theory, and Forest Exploitation in Oaxaca, 1926 –2001. International Symposium of the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental History Association, Seville, Spain, May 2006.
(2005) Dark Acts and Public Light: Navigating the State in the Forests of Mexico. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Washington D.C., December 1, 2005.
(2005) Fire and Memory in the Forests of Oaxaca, Mexico. Presented at Environmental Studies Seminar Series, Florida International University, October 19, 2005.
(2005) Indigenous Government, Community Forestry and the Mexican State.” Indigenous Rights and Environment in Latin America: A Symposium in Recognition of Professors Emeriti William Vickers and Janet Chernela, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, April 18, 2005.
(2005) Urban understandings of fire, logging and biodiversity in Mexico, 1926-2004.” Invited Lecture: CIESAS Occidente, Guadalajara, Mexico. April 13.
(2005)Building the Town in the Country: Urban Understandings of Fire, Logging and Biodiversity in Mexico, 1926-2004. Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology.Santa Fe, New Mexico, April 5-10.
(2004) State Formation and Social Change in Latin America.” Yale University, April. (2004) Fire History and Official Knowledge in Mexico. Invited Lecture. Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, April 8.
(2004) Fighting Fire and Preserving Ignorance in the Pine-oak Forests of Oaxaca. Doctoral Research Conference, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, February 6.
(2003) Fighting Fire and Preserving Ignorance in the Pine-Oak Forests of Oaxaca, Mexico. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, November 19.
(2002) Conjuring the Environment, Saving the World and Making a Living: Biodiversity Protection, Forest Science and Community Forestry in Oaxaca, Mexico.Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, November.
(2001) Presentation of Research to the Community of Ixtlán de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico, July.
(2001) Environmental History in the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca 1887-2001: Environmental Degradation and Political Restoration. Presented to the Yale Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, October 17.
Departmental and Professional Service
Graduate Director, UCSC Department of Anthropology, 2016-
Search Committee, Biological Anthropology, UCSC, 2014-2015
Senate Committee on Faculty Welfare, UCSC 2014-2016
Senate Committee on Library Services 2012-2013
Personnel Committee, UCSC Department of Anthropology, 2010-2012
Graduate Admissions Committee, UCSC Department of Anthropology, 2007-2009, 2014-
Graduate Student Proseminar, UCSC 2009-2010, 2014-2016
Undergraduate Director, UCSC Anthropology, 2010-2013
Steering Committee, Science and Justice Working Group, UC Santa Cruz, 2009- 2011
Steering Committee Center for Emerging Worlds, UCSC Anthropology Department, 2015- .
Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Florida International University. 2004- 2006
Committees: Chair of Environmental Anthropology Search Committee,
Graduate Committee, Personnel Committee, Environmental Social Science
Committee, Faculty Advisory Committee, Latin American and Caribbean Center,
Florida International University. 2004-2006
Doctoral Student Advising (with graduation dates)
Chair
Lizzy Hare (2017), Micha Rahder (2014), Jon Nyqvist, Daniel Schniedewind, Rob Davenport
Committee Member
Hector Flores Ocon, (CIESAS Guadalara, Mexico 2008), Jeremy Campbell (2009), Jessica O’Reilly (2010), Daniella Schweitzer (Environmental Studies 2012), William Girard (2013) Rosa Ficek (2014), Christian Palmer (2013), Heather Swanson (2013), Micha Rahder (2014), Felicia Peck (UCSC Politics 2016), Zac Caple (2016), Colin Hoag (2016), Maron Greenleaf (Stanford, Anthropology 2016), Christopher Butler (Sociology, 2015) Allison Kendra (Stanford University), Gillian Bogart, Alix Johnson, Kirsten Keller, Darcey Evans, Craig Schuetze, Salvador Contreras, Emily Reisman (Environmental Studies), Marcela Cely Santos (Environmental Studies), Luz Cordoba (Sociology), Dominique De Witt (Politics), Rebecca Feinberg, Rachel Cypher