Julie Velásquez Runk

Assistant Professor
Ph.D.  Anthropology and Forestry & Environmental Studies,
Yale University and The New York Botanical Garden, 2005
julievr@uga.edu

Research and Teaching Interests

• Political ecology
• Research methodologies
• Food, environment, and culture
• Technology and globalization
• Ethnography, ethnohistory, especially of Latin America
• Landscapes, heterogeneity, and historical ecology
• Ethnoecology
• Art and material culture

I have broad interests in peoples’ use of agricultural and forested environments and their negotiation with cultural, political, and economic forces in their efforts to both use and conserve environments. I have researched these topics with Wounaan and, earlier, with Emberá, peoples in eastern Panama since late 1996. I teach these topics in courses such as the anthropology of eating, technology and development, ethnoecology, and Latin American ethnography.

In my research I have examined alternative narratives of history, culture, resources, and landscapes of eastern Panama and the political contexts in which they are engaged. For example, I studied how indigenous Wounaan cosmology relates to landscape and resource use as well as how conservationists understand those same topics. I also am beginning two research projects that explore the impacts of changing law on indigenous art and lands. I am an advocate for the use of multiple methods--from participatory ethnography to vegetation assessments to multi-scalar mapping--for the richness of data and depth they provide to research questions. I focus my work in Latin America, having carried out research in Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Panama, with mestizo, black, and indigenous communities.

Selected publications:

• Velásquez Runk, J., Gervacio Ortíz Negría, Wilio Quintero García, and Cristobalino Quiróz Ismare.  2007.  “Political Economic History, Culture, and Wounaan Livelihood Diversity in Eastern Panama.” Agriculture and Human Values.  24: 93-106.


• Bletter, Nat, Kurt Reynertson, and Julie Velásquez Runk.  2007.  “Artificae Plantae: Taxonomy, Ecology, and Ethnobotany of the Simulacraceae.”  Ethnobotany Research and Applications. 5: 159-177.


• Velásquez Runk, J., Floriselda Peña, and Pinel Mepaquito.  2004.  “Artisanal Non-Timber Forest Products in Darién Province, Panamá: The Importance of Context.” Conservation and Society, 2(2):217-234


• Velásquez Runk, Julia and James Dalling.  2001.  “La artesanía de la tagua y el cocobolo en las comunidades Wounaan y Emberá de Darién.”  In Stanley Heckadon-Moreno, ed.  Panamá: Puente Biológico.  Panamá, Panamá, Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales: 187-192.


• Velásquez Runk, J.  2001.  An Interesting Population of Phytelephas from Panamá.  Palms, 45(4): 196-199.


• Velásquez Runk, J.  2001.  Wounaan and Emberá Use of the Fiber Palm Astrocaryum standleyanum (Arecaceae) for Basketry in Eastern Panamá.  Economic Botany, 55(1):72-82.


• Velásquez Runk, J.  1998.  “Productivity and Sustainability of a Vegetable Ivory Palm (Phytelephas aequatorialis) Under Three Management Regimes in Northwestern Ecuador.”  Economic Botany, 52(2): 168-182.


• Velásquez Runk, Julie, Nadine Freeman, y Rodrigo Calero.  1995.  La Tagua: Historia y Manejo.  Quito, Ecuador: CIDESA. 20pp.