Nature and Society

Geography provides an important bridge between the social and environmental sciences. Drawing on analytical and theoretical perspectives in ecology, cultural ecology, political ecology, and science studies, UNC geographers focus on geographies of environmental change and on the political-economic and social contexts of environmental change, human use of the environment, and the consequences of such uses.

Departmental research includes cultural ecologies of Meso-America, disease ecologies, urban ecologies in Baltimore, Thailand, and elsewhere; geo-archeology in Turkey, science studies, environmental resource policy in the 19th century American West; post-socialist environmental transitions; and agrarian struggles in Brazil.

Several faculty and graduate students maintain close links with the Carolina Population Center, while others are involved campus-wide with scholars working in science studies, health studies, and development studies.

Associated Faculty

Larry Band, Steve Birdsall, Martin Doyle, Michael Emch, Arturo Escobar (adjunct: Anthropology), John Florin, Ken Hillis (adjunct: Communication Studies), Scott Kirsch, Melinda Meade, John Pickles, Steve Walsh, Tom Whitmore, Wendy Wolford, Jim Fraser.