The International Relations Office is proud to welcome Anthony Bebbington, Milton P. and Alice C. Higgins Professor of Environment and Society at the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University. Professor Bebbington is an esteemed international scholar who will now join Bath as our newest Global Chair.
Professor Bebbington's research examines social and environmental resource conflicts in Latin America, with a focus on mineral industries and the mining sector in Peru. He recently completed a prestigious Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, during which he was based at the University of Melbourne and developed a new project on the governance of resource extraction under the conditions of climate change.
He will be hosted by Dr Roy Maconachie in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences during his time at Bath.
The appointment will provide support for their research collaboration, including the preparation of a GCRF grant proposal and a jointly-authored publication. In addition, Professor Bebbington will be mentoring early career researchers and PhD students at Bath.
His visit promises to be a catalyst for strengthening interdisciplinary approaches to international development and resource conflicts at Bath, including new trans-regional links between research in Latin America and Africa. His presence will lend further support to the development of an emerging interdisciplinary Bath research hub on extractive industries and development, bringing together colleagues from the Centre for Development Studies, PoLIS, School of Management, and the Water Innovation and Research Centre (WIRC).
Commenting on Professor Bebbington's recent arrival, Dr Roy Maconachie said:
We are thrilled to have Tony with us at Bath this summer as Global Chair. He is a distinguished and globally renowned scholar with an outstanding international research profile, being particularly recognised as a leader in the study of the extractive industries in Latin America. His appointment here aligns very well with momentum to build up a recognised body of expertise looking at the extractive industries and development. Tony will certainly be an important anchor to help us further develop interdisciplinary research on the extractives at Bath.
Professor Bebbington is accompanied by his wife, Dr Denise Humphreys-Bebbington, who is Associate Research Professor of International Development and Social Change at Clark University. She is also an internationally recognised scholar in extractive industry and infrastructure development in Latin America. Having been the Director of Clark's Women’s and Gender Studies Program, she further brings essential gender studies expertise to the field.
Speaking about his Global Chair appointment, Professor Anthony Bebbington noted:
Bath has always been a point of reference for work on Development Studies and Social Policy, so it is a real pleasure to be able to spend time with colleagues here under the auspices of the Global Chair scheme. In particular, the plan is to collaborate with Dr Roy Maconachie and others whose work, like mine, addresses the relationships between extractive industry, development and social mobilization for policy change. With Dr Maconachie in particular, this allows us to think comparatively across small and large scale mining, Latin America and Africa, different types of minerals, and the social and bio-physical worlds.
We welcome everyone to join us for Professor Bebbington's public lecture, entitled, Resource extraction, climate change and the right to live well: long and short routes to policy change, which will take place on Thursday, 25 July at 5.15 pm.