Dr. Stuart Kirsch

Biography

Stuart Kirsch is the Roy A. Rappaport Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. His research engages with the intersections of politics and the environment, contributing to discussions on climate change, corporate accountability, indigenous rights, and industrial ethnography. Kirsch authored several critical works, including 'Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social Environmental Relations in New Guinea' and 'Mining Capitalism: The Relationship Between Corporations and Critics'. A prominent figure in engaged anthropology, he has conducted long-term advocacy research with communities affected by the Ok Tedi copper gold mine in Papua New Guinea and the political issues facing indigenous refugees in West Papua. He has served as a consultant for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal in the Marshall Islands and has been involved in multiple conservation projects in Papua New Guinea. Kirsch's recent project, supported by the NOMIS Foundation in Zurich, focuses on post-carbon transitions and the role of mangrove conservation in carbon sequestration. He has held visiting appointments at esteemed institutions including the University of Cambridge and Yale University. At the University of Michigan, he teaches courses on the Anthropocene, environmental anthropology, and indigenous political movements, and is a co-convenor for the ethnography lab aimed at supporting postgraduate students in writing dissertations.

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