Todd French (Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont)

Submitted:  Mon, 9 February 2009


Todd French, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753 USA

phone: 802-443-5755
email: tfrench@middlebury.edu


Research interests

Historical and political ecologies, social memory of landscape change, the 
cultural politics of ecological restoration, resilience in 
socio-ecological systems, globalization and environmental conservation, 
with an area specialization in southern Africa. 

In 2001 and 2002 I carried out research in central Mozambique on a 
population living in and around Gorongosa National Park. The dissertation 
that is based on this research is entitled: "'Like Leaves Fallen by Wind': 
Resilience, Remembrance, and Restoration in central Mozambique."

In it I explore conflicts surrounding the reconstruction of landscapes and 
livelihoods in the wake of decades of civil war and environmental 
disasters and is part of my general interest in the relationship between 
social and ecological resilience in the face of violent conflict and 
environmental instability.  I also reconstruct how humans in central 
Mozambique have responded to various disruptions, such as violence, 
drought, and relocation, to understand why at some moments these systems 
have been resilient and other times vulnerable to collapse. Finally, I 
examine the field of power relations at various scales, in which social 
actors construct memories and discourses about the landscape during 
post-conflict reconstruction.

My continuing and future research over the next several years will be on how 
the cultural politics of social memory influence both scientific and local 
discourses and practice in Mozambican conservation and development.