I believe the lack of diversity in environmental scholarship and solutions has a profound origin in how we produce and assess expertise --in the mechanisms that allow specific knowledge, and its producers, to be part or not of daily power relations and decisions.

I have argued for the need to rethink more profoundly on what are the epistemological origins and consequences of the lack of representation in environmental knowledge across disciplines, national borders, and the human-animal divide. 

As a member of the Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (CODIE) of the American Society for Enviornmental History (ASEH), I had the honor to organize this CODIE-Sponsored rountable for the ASEH Conference 2020: Diversifying Ontologies & Ontologies  

The roundtable acknowledged that "the lack of diversity and representation in the production of environmental knowledge creates epistemological gaps that compromise our understanding of complex socio-ecological issues." It also claimed that "as public awareness about ecological disparities increases, addressing these epistemological challenges will be essential to expand the role of environmental history in broader academic and public discussions." 

Read the complete abstract and learn about the participants here. 

I have also addressed issues of inequalities and representation in my work as creator and curator of these two collections for Rachel Carson Center's Arcadia on expertise, technology, and animal studies: Technology & Expertise and Histories across Species


My current work on global nitrogen pollution addresses several of these issues in the rise of scientific knowledge and nitrogen governance institutions. As a public scholar, I have called for the need to integrate issues of socioeconomic inequality and vulnerable livelihoods with pressing problems of environmental conversation. See, for instance, my 2018 co-authored article on the impacts of free-ranging dogs among small-scale farmers and indigenous communities in Chile and my op-ed piece in spanish addressing the socio-ecological impacts of free-ranging dogs as an environmental justice issue. 

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Issues of diversity and inclusion enter and leave the agendas of academic and political debates. I believe academic communities and institutions require a more profound conversation on how we think and address these issues. Reach out if you want to expand this conversation.