Paige West Assistant Professor

 Ph.D., Rutgers University

 Telephone: (212)-854-5933       Email: pwest@barnard.edu

Paige West received her MA in Environmental Anthropology from the University of Georgia and her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Rutgers University. Drawing on the theories, methods, and insights of cultural anthropology, cultural geography and ecology, she has conducted fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, Australia, Germany, England, and the United States. In 2002 she received the American Anthropological Association's Anthropology and Environment Junior Scholar award for her work, in 2004 she received the American Association of University Women Junior Faculty Fellowship and the American Council of Learned Societies Faculty Fellowship, and in 2006 she received the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Fellowship. Dr. West is a cultural and environmental anthropologist with interests in the linkages between environmental conservation and international development, the material and symbolic ways in which the natural world is understood and produced, the aesthetics and poetics of human social relations with nature, and the critical analysis of the creation of commodities and practices of consumption. Dr. West is the author of Conservation is our government now: The politics of ecology in Papua New Guinea, published by Duke University Press. She has just completed a second manuscript entitled From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: Tracking the Commodity Ecumene for Papua New Guinean Coffee which will be reviewed by Duke University Press. She is the author of several articles, including "Environmental NGO's and the Nature of Ethnographic Inquiry," in Social Analysis, "Ecotourism and Authenticity: Getting Away From It All?" with James G. Carrier in Current Anthropology, "The Man and The Mine: Desire, Hope and Anxiety in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea," in The Contemporary Pacific, and "Translation, Value, and Space: Theorizing an Ethnographic and Engaged Environmental Anthropology," in American Anthropologist. Dr. West current research, funded by the National Geographic Society and Columbia University, is a study of the meanings and values attributed to tree kangaroos, birds of paradise, and crocodiles, three iconic species from Papua New Guinea.

Selection Publications

Single Author Monographs
Conservation in Our Government Now:
The Politics of Ecology in Papua New Guinea
Durham: Duke University Press

In Prep
From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: Tracking the Commodity Ecumene for Papua New Guinean Coffee.

Edited volumes
2006 Melanesian Mining Modernities. Paige West and Martha Macintyre (eds). The Contemporary Pacific. 18 (2)
Forthcoming Against the Tides: The Vayda Tradition in Human Ecology and Ecological Anthropology. (Eds.) Bradley Walters, Bonnie J. McCay, Paige West, and Susan Lees. Lantham, MD: Lexington Books.

Edited volumes in preparation
Vision and Execution in environmental conservation: virtualism, practice and governance. James G. Carrier and Paige West (eds).
Surroundings, selves and others: the political economy of identity and the environment. Paige West and James G. Carrier (eds).
Trading in Coffee: Commodity Chains, Nature, and Space. Molly Doane and Paige West (eds.)

Peer Review Journal Articles
Under Review, "Scientific Tourism: Imagining, Experiencing, and Portraying Environment and Society in Papua New Guinea," Submitted June 19, 2006 to Current Anthropology.
2006 "Some unexpected consequences of protected areas: An anthropological perspective," Conservation Biology. Paige West and Daniel Brockington. 20 (3):609 - 616.
2006 "Una Perspectiva Antropolgica de Algunas Consecuencias Inesperadas de "reas Protegidas' NeoCons." Paige West and Daniel Brockington. 6 (3) : 609-616 (translation and reprinting of West and Brockington 2006a).
2006 "Parks and Peoples: The Social Effects of Protected Areas," Annual Review of Anthropology, Volume 35, October 2006, Paige West, Daniel Brockington and James Igoe. 35 (1):14.1-14.27. (PDF, 2)
2006 "Environmental conservation and mining: between experience and expectation in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea" The Contemporary Pacific. 18 (2): 295-313. (PDF)
2005 "Translation, Value, and Space: Theorizing an Ethnographic and Engaged Environmental Anthropology," American Anthropologist 107(4):632-642. (PDF)
2005 "Holding the Story Forever: The Aesthetics of Ethnographic Labor," Anthropological Forum 15(3):267-275. (PDF)
2004 "Getting Away From It All? Ecotourism and Authenticity," Current Anthropology, with commentary and reply 45(4): 483-498. Paige West and James G. Carrier (PDF)
2003 "Knowing the fight: the politics of conservation in Papua New Guinea, Anthropology in Action: Journal for Applied Anthropology in Policy and Practice. 10 (2): 38 - 45.
2001 "Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations and the Nature of Ethnographic Inquiry," Social Analysis 45(2).

Chapters in books
Forthcoming. "Conservation Actions and Events in Papua New Guinea" in Against the Tides: The Vayda Tradition in Human Ecology and Ecological Anthropology. (Eds.) Bradley Walters, Bonnie J. McCay, Paige West, and Susan Lees. Lantham, MD: Lexington Books.
2004 "Environmental NGO's and the nature of ethnographic inquiry" in Anthropology and Consultancy P.J. Stewart and A. Strathern (eds.), 2004, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
2004 "Local history as "indigenous knowledge: Aeroplanes, conservation and development in Haia and Maimafu, Papua New Guinea," Bicker, A., P. Sillitoe & J. Pottier. (eds.) Investigating Local Knowledge: New Directions, New Approaches. London: Ashgate Publishing.

Working Papers
2004 Ten Thousand Tonnes of Small Animals: Wildlife Consumption in Papua New Guinea, a vital resource in need of management. Mack, Andrew and Paige West. RMAP Working Papers, Resource Management in Asia and the Pacific Working Group, Australian National University. (PDF)

Courses Taught

Undergraduate:
The Interpretation of Culture
Anthropology of Consumption
Environment and Cultural Behavior
Introduction to Environmental Anthropology
Environment and Development
Political Ecology
Senior Seminar (co-taught with anthropology faculty)

Graduate:
Parks and Peoples: The social effects of protected areas
Place, Space, and Nature
Political Ecology
Culture and Consumption
Environment and Consumption (5 week course)
Environment and Development (5 week course)
Protected Areas and Indigenous Peoples (5 week course)

Current Affiliations with other Barnard Departments and Programs
Environmental Science
Human Rights
Barnard Center for Research on Women

Current Affiliations with Columbia University Departments
Anthropology
Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B)
Sustainable Development Ph.D. Program, Earth Institute


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