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Washington University in St. Louis News & Information > Faculty Experts at Washington University in St. Louis >
Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology and Environmental Studies in Arts & Sciences Expertise: ecological anthropology, political and historical ecology, agricultural biotechnology, settlement patterns, population, ethnoarchaeology, Web-based scholarship, subSaharan Africa, India, American Southwest Bio: Stone is an ecological anthropologist who has studied indigenous agricultural systems for the past 20 years. He has written extensively on intensification, labor organization, sexual division of labor, ethnicity and production, spatial organization and especially relationships between population, conflict and agricultural change. His principal focus has been on sustainable farming systems in Africa, with a secondary focus on the American southwest. He has recently begun research among cotton farmers in Andhra Pradesh, India, where controversial GM crops have recently been introduced. In 2000, he took an NSF-sponsored leave to participate in research on genetic modification of cassava at the Danforth Plant Science Center. In 2001 he introduced a course on genetic engineering titled Brave New Crops: Ecology and Politics of Genetic Modification. The class examines the major issues surrounding the development and use of genetically engineered foods: the myths and realities, the health issues and the political pressure. For his work, Stone has been awarded an NEH Fellowship, a Weatherhead Fellowship and a Gordon Willey Prize. WUSTL Contact Information:
Education:
Additional Background: Glenn Stone's research is on environmental anthropology and political ecology: he studies the social and political aspects of agricultural systems, population increase and agricultural biotechnology. He has worked on ancient, historic and contemporary nonindustrialized farmers in Africa, India and North America. Stone's Nigerian research examined social and agricultural change among Kofyar and Tiv populations during 40 years of rising population density. He used the Kofyar's archetypal example of intensification to study social organization of labor and landscape in a highly productive, sustainable system. Comparative research on Tiv showed different responses to land scarcity, including belligerence and the manipulation of local political processes to avoid intensification. A larger aim of this work has been development of stronger models of agricultural change that recognize cultural context and agency. His work on Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazis) concerns political and agricultural responses to population increase over longer time spans. This work also provided a model of ecological parameters of intensification. His present work focuses on agricultural biotechnology, especially a set of issues relating to the introduction of genetically modified crops in developing countries. He recently completed a semester of work in a laboratory specializing in transformation of tropical subsistence crops, and has begun a large NSF-sponsored project on information flow, farmer skill, and the political ecology of genetically modified crops in southern India. Apart from India, Stone maintains a real interest in contemporary subSaharan Africa and the prehistoric American Southwest; however his work is on processes that occur worldwide, and he works with students conducting research in diverse areas. Methodologically his work has included archaeological fieldwork and excavation, archival research, ethnography, intensive use of computers (including current interests in innovative forms of web-based research), and remote sensing data. Courses Biotechnology (Brave New Crops), Culture and Environment, Political Ecology, Quantitative Methods, Peoples & Cultures of Africa, Proposal Writing Selected Publications 2005 A Science of the Gray: Malthus, Marx, and the Ethics of Studying Crop Biotechnology. In Embedding Ethics: Shifting Boundaries of the Anthropological Profession, ed. L. Meskell and P. Pels, pp. 197-217. Berg, Oxford. [pdf] 2004 Biotechnology and the Political Ecology of Information in India. Human Organization 63:127-140 [html, pdf] 2002 Both Sides Now: Fallacies in the Genetic-Modification Wars, Implications for Developing Countries, and Anthropological Perspectives. Current Anthropology, 43(4):611-630 (a CA enhanced online article; pdf file with separate backgrounder available locally). 2002 Biotechnology and Suicide in India. Anthropology News 43(5):5. [html] 2001 Theory of the Square Chicken: Advances in Agricultural Intensification Theory. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 42:163-180. [pdf] 2001 Agricultural Change Theory. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, ed. N. Smelser and P. Baltes, pp. 329-333. Pergamon, Oxford. [pdf] 1999 (Stone, G.D. and C.E. Downum) Non-Boserupian Ecology and Agricultural Risk: Ethnic Politics and Land Control in the Arid Southwest. American Anthropologist 101:113-128. (GORDON WILLEY AWARD, 2000) [html, pdf] 1998 Keeping the Home Fires Burning: The Changed Nature of Householding in the Kofyar Homeland. Human Ecology 26:239-265. [pdf] 1997 Predatory Sedentism: Intimidation and Intensification in the Nigerian Savanna. Human Ecology 25:223-242. [pdf] 1996 Settlement Ecology: The Social and Spatial Organization of Kofyar Agriculture. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. |
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Revised: Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006 
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