We study human-environment relations, the socio-cultural dimensions of environmental change, and pathways to sustainability and environmental justice. The lab is headed by UCSB Associate Professor of Anthropology, Jeffrey Hoelle, whose research focuses on land use, ideologies of cultivation, and environmental destruction in the Brazilian Amazon. Graduate students in the lab study topics ranging from management of invasive lionfish in the Mexican Caribbean, struggles for justice along the soy frontier of Argentine Chaco, the edible insect industry and efforts to increase insect consumption in North America, and the challenges of fighting California wildfires amid environmental change.

 

Along with undergraduate students, we work on local projects, such as the Isla Vista Ethnobotany Project, which aim to increase knowledge and engagement with the environment and cultural landscape surrounding UCSB.