ILJ Colloquium Fall 2019
Infrastructure, Rights and Regulation
Convened by Benedict Kingsbury and Sally Engle Merry
Speaker: Ashley Carse, Vanderbilt University.
Topic: Nature as Infrastructure: Reflections on the Panama Canal
Location: Furman Hall 120
About Prof. Carse
Professor Carse is a cultural anthropologist who conducts research on the global dimensions of community development, environmental politics and sustainability, and the social dimensions of science and technology. He uses qualitative and historical methods to understand how large infrastructure projects shape and are shaped by communities and ecologies. In addition to long-term field research in rural and urban Panama, he has worked in Ecuador and the southeastern United States. He is currently focusing on three projects: 1) a study of global infrastructure development, communities, and democracy in Latin America and the United States; 2) a multi-sited ethnography of the global shipping industry linking the Panama Canal expansion to development and environmental change in the southeastern United States; and 3) a history and ethnography of water politics in Panama.