Spring 2015 Seminar Series: Catherine Corson

Catherine Corson, Miller Worley Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College, will explore the historical and contemporary political corridors that connect a Malagasy village with Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Using the U.S. Agency for International Development's environmental program in Madagascar as a window into the 40-year transformation of global environmental governance under neoliberalism and its relationship to shifting resource rights and access in the global south and drawing on ethnographic research conducted in multiple sites across the United States, England, and Madagascar, she will show how various actors-representing the U.S. and Madagascar governments, contractors, non-governmental organizations, scientists and villagers-have negotiated U.S. funding for environmental issues in Madagascar since the 1970s. This talk is part of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and the University Program in Environmental Policy seminar series featuring leading experts discussing a variety of pressing environmentally focused topics.