Neumann, Rod
 

Associate Professor  
Department of International Relations

Area of Specialization

Linkages between rural development, resource conservation, and land degradation in the Third World. 

Research

Prof. Neumann's interests include social theory and human-environment relations as well as African studies and political ecology.  He travels frequently to Africa, especially Tanzania, studying the cultural and historical roots of political conflict between peasantries and conservation advocates, landscape representation and social constructions of nature in European colonialism, contemporary development initiatives, and the introduction of modernity in Africa.  His research has been published in Antipode, Society and Space, and Development and Change, among others.  In 1994-1995, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University in James Scott's Program for Agrarian Studies, where he wrote Imposing Wilderness:  Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa (University of California Press, 1998).  In 1997, the National Science Foundation awarded him a research grant for a three-year study of the relationships among property rights, environmental conservation, and social change in Tanzania.  Before joining the FIU faculty, Prof. Neumann worked for seven years as a wilderness ranger with the U.S. Forest Service; he also holds a graduate degree in forestry and international development from the University of Idaho. 

Courses Taught

• GEA 2000, World Regional Geography
• GEO 3421, Cultural Geography
• GEO 3502, Economic Geography
• INR 6473, Space, Place and Identity