I am a Sociocultural Anthropologist interested in globalization, development and political ecology. I examine environmental concerns in the context of social justice, using case studies to explore the evolving global imaginaries that beckon us to define environmental problems like biodiversity conservation and food security in modernist, often economistic, terms.  As an ethnographer, I witness and celebrate the mischiefs that can be worked upon these ethnocentric constructions by people who see the same issues from other cultural perspectives, shaped by grounded experience, by sociality, materiality, historicity, and by languages that affirm more-than-human kinships and affects.

Transdisciplinary engagements, including the ecological humanities and natural sciences, are vital to my work.  I have previously been a Fellow at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, and a Fellow at the Center for Twenty-First Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.

Because of my current duties as Acting Head, I will not be teaching in winter term 2024. Please look for my classes in 2025!

NEW COURSE: The Anthropology of Energy & Sustainability (ANTH 362)

This course explores the human dimensions of energy resource extraction, production and consumption, through the lens of ethnographic case studies from different parts of the world. We consider critical debates around energy systems and sustainability from the perspective of political ecology and climate justice, giving particular attention to the cultural and historical contexts of evolving energy frontiers.

Eating Culture (ANTH 210)

Foodways are a celebrated and essential part of social life. Culturally meaningful ingredients and recipes reflect upon specific ecological adaptations and histories of landscape. Our memories, identities, and sense of well-being are tied to the foods we produce, collect, prepare and share with others. While some food traditions are deeply rooted in place, others emerge from the processes of globalization, migration, innovation and change. 

Gardens of Culture (ANTH 437)

This undergraduate seminar explores the anthropology of agriculture and food systems. Every farm and household plot is a garden of culture, producing not only the food that sustains our bodies, but also connections to family and community, relationships with nature and climate, and particular understandings of the world. Learning to understand the perspectives of food producers in their own terms will help us cultivate viable multispecies futures.

Ecological Anthropology (ANTH 360)

Looking at case studies of resource extraction, climate change, biodiversity conservation, agricultural adaptation, ecotourism and attempts to “green” the economy, we explore how ethnographic methods support Indigenous and local perspectives around the world, as people perceive, challenge and reshape the global processes and structural inequalities that affect them and their home places.

Anthropocene Imaginaries (Graduate Seminar)

This course explores evolving concerns around the climate and nature emergency, and considers how cultural visions and aesthetics of place are interconnected with emerging global discourses about environmental security, governance and power. Representations of culture and environment have compelling implications for human rights and Indigenous sovereignties over land, water and natural resources. Blending perspectives from the environmental humanities, STS, and ethnography, we critically reflect on approaches to “the Anthropocene”.

My early research analyzed how powerful discourses about nature conservation can reproduce colonial and racist visions of culture and environment. Focusing on critical approaches to parks and protected areas, I looked at a contentious case on the island of Sardinia, Italy, during the period when European states sought to establish new national parks. My ethnography, Wild Sardinia, sought to complicate the global discourses of environmentalism by looking at the history of governance and development in highland Sardinia. I return there periodically to extend research on agriculture, food systems and sustainability.

I have continued the critical study of biodiversity conservation at a broader scale, in relation to plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. This research examines diverse cultural projects of seed banking and seed saving, including the envisioned role of agricultural science, technology and institutions in international efforts to adapt to climate change.  I consider how world food security is shaped not only by changing environments, but also by how we frame understandings, ethical commitments and collaborations we articulate in response to them.

Selected Academic Papers

2024. Heatherington, Tracey. “With Endless Articulations: Conserving Biodiversity in the Infinity Mirror” in Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 42 (1). Open access.

2021. Heatherington, Tracey. “Havens Against the Blight: Daydreaming Agriculture in the Future Past”, in Moveable Gardens: Itineraries and Sanctuaries of Memory, Virginia Nazarea and Terese Gagnon, eds., pp.199-222.  University of Arizona Press. JSTOR

2021. Heatherington, Tracey. “Fertility’s Fate: Agrarian Anxieties and the Social Life of Seeds”, in Seedways: The circulation, control and care of plants in a warmer world, Beppe Karlsson and Annika Rabo, eds. Series: Kungl. Konferenser 104, pp. 207-226. Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. Open access.

2020. Heatherington, Tracey. “Polyphony for the Ivory Tower Blues: Critical Pedagogies in Graduate Professional Development” in Collaborations: Anthropology in a Neoliberal Age, pp. 85-104. Emma Heffernan, Fiona Murphy and Jonathan Skinner, eds. Routledge. Taylor & Francis.

Selected Writing for a General Audience

2023. Heatherington, Tracey. “Unassisted Steering.” Creative Nonfiction. Special section: Hundreds for Katie. Anthropology and Humanism 48 (2): 432. Open access.

2020. Heatherington, Tracey. “Seeds” in The Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon, pp. 404-409. Cymene Howe and Anand Pandian, eds. Punctum Books. Open access.

2017. Heatherington, Tracey and Bernard C. Perley, “Fieldnotes from Svalbard: How Global Dreamings Take Root in the Arctic Frontier” Europe Now special feature on Facing the Anthropocene, Issue 7.  Open access.

Victor Turner Book Prize for Ethnographic Writing, Society for Humanistic Anthropology (AAA), 2010.

Australian Anthropology Society Best Essay Prize, 2013.

I am excited to mentor students who have developed a vision for their own independent fieldwork projects, grounded in ethnography. My research interests include case studies relevant to the climate and nature emergency, energy transitions, conservation debates, food systems, new technologies and the future of sustainability and development. To assess the compatibility of  orientations and approaches, it will be helpful to read some of my academic-facing work. Several of my supervisees have had transdisciplinary trajectories, but prospective students should become familiar with the basic methods of Cultural Anthropology before applying to our graduate program. I particularly welcome inquiries from students whose research concerns Western Europe.

Current students: Felix Giroux, Hilal Kina, Caroline Stampliaka

I co-edit a book series, Critical Green Engagements: Investigating the Green Economy and its Alternatives, at the University of Arizona Press. I also serve on editorial boards for two open-access academic publications, the Journal of the Italian Society of Cultural Anthropology (ANUAC), and the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures (AJEC), as well as the Scientific Committee of SOAS GLOCAL. It is an honour to be part of these remarkable collaborations.

In spring 2021, I co-organized an interdisciplinary conference, Un/Predictable Environments: Politics, Ecology, Agency, with colleagues in Belfast and Allahabad. Thanks and funding from SSHRC and the Public Humanities Hub at UBC, our video archive and blog are available open access. Our special events, organized by an international team of fourteen students and faculty and one canine mascot, included four keynotes streamed from Delhi, Sydney, Toronto and upstate New York, film screenings, an art prize, and the launch of the Environmental Humanities Research Network at UBC.