Robert Rhoades
Distinguished Research Professor
Director of the Sustainable Human Ecosystem Laboratory
Director of the Laboratory of Agricultural and Natural Resource Anthropology
Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, 1976
rrhoades@uga.edu
Website: http://lanra.anthro.uga.edu/rhoades/
Currently, and over the past twenty five years, I have been involved as an academic and applied anthropologist in the creation of agricultural and natural resource anthropology. Within these newly emerging fields of anthropology, I thematically focus on mountains, crop genetic resources, soils, climate change, rural migration and watershed management. I believe that the distinction between theoretical ethnography and practicing anthropology is artificial and the two orientations should be creatively combined to produce an engaged and useful anthropology for the 21st Century.
I am the Director of the Sustainable Human Ecosystem Laboratory in the Department of Anthropology which houses state-of-the-art equipment and facilities for computer-driven anthropological research. Ongoing activities in the Ecuadorian Andes involves management of a large interdisiciplinary, participatory research project (called SANREM or "Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management" funded by USAID) focused on ethnic groups living in watersheds around the Cotacachi-Cayapas Ecological Reserve. A new parallel project to the Andean work involves a SANREM participatory watershed management along the Oconee River in Georgia in which an interdisciplinary team looks at the changing agricultural landscape and its impact on the people and land of the watershed. Also in the American south, I am the Principal Investigator of the "Southern Seed Legacy" which aims at the preservation of vanishing landrace plants of cultural significance. Along with other colleagues in the Department of Anthropology, I also support and conduct research with Foxfire Fund, a well-known Appplachian educational foundation which has been long involved in the collection of oral history and folklore among the people of the mountains.
For over a decade, I have been working with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, Nepal, on sustainable agriculture and natural resource issues. I serve on the Executive Boards of the Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute in Nairobi and the International Board for Soil Research and Mangement in Bangkok. I am a member of the National Genetic Resource Advisory Council appointed by the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture.
Periodically, I write for National Geographic Magazine on popular food and agriculture themes. In my spare time, I am restoring a 320 acre degraded cotton farm located in Oglethorpe County, Georgia.
Recent publications:- 2001 Climate Change in the Western Himalayas of India: A Study of Local Perception and Response. Climate Change Research. 19:109-117 (With N. Vedwan).
- 2001 Development Indicators for Mountain Regions (comment on Kreutzmann). Mountain Research and Development. 21(3): 307-308.
- 2000 Integrating Local Voices and Visions into the Global Mountain Agenda. Mountain Research and Development, 20(1): 4-9.
- 1999 Catch the Tiger by the Tail: Some Notes on Method. Human Organization 58(3): 348.
- 1998 Defining Indicators Which Make Sense to Local People: Intra-Cultural Variation in Perceptions of Natural Resources. Human Organization 57(2): 159-170 (with V. Nazarea, E. Bontoya, and G. Flora).
