Jose Martinez Reyes
Areas of Expertise
Environmental Anthropology, Political Ecology, Agroforestry, Biocultural Diversity Conservation, Material Culture, Social and Critical Theory, Ecomusicology, Mexico, Caribbean, Fiji, Galicia
Degrees
PhD, University of Massachusetts Amherst
MA, Northeastern University, Boston
Visiting Fellow, Yale University (2014-15)
Additional Information
Jose E. Martinez-Reyes is the Director of the Environmental Anthropology Program Minor
His current research focuses on the global production, consumption, and management of Honduras Mahogany (swietenia macrophylla), in Mexico and Fiji, from forest plantations to the materiality of guitar making and playing.
He is also engaged in a study about Mayan perceptions of climate change and how their traditional ecological knowledge adapts to address such changes particularly in their agricultural practices.
His research in general focuses the ways that people engage, perceive, and create meanings and knowledge about the environment and how that engagement is influenced by wider networks of power relations. Based on extensive field research in Quintana Roo, Mexico, he has studied the conflicts over the privatization and management of forest resources on a Biosphere Reserve between the Maasewal Maya, local NGOs, and the state. A book detailing this research titled “Moral Ecology of a Forest: Nature Industry and Maya Post-Conservation” was published by University of Arizona Press in November 2016.
He has also conducted research on community management of forests and the transformations of forest landscape in Puerto Rico. The book La Transformación del Paisaje Puertorriqueño y la Disciplina del Cuerpo Civil de Conservación 1933-1942 (The Transformation of Puerto Rican Landscape and the Discipline of the Civilian Conservation Corps 1933-1942), co-authored with Manuel Valdés-Pizzini and Michael González Cruz) has been published by the University of Puerto Rico (2011).
Courses Taught:
ANTH 263 Environmental Anthropology
ANTH 274 Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean
ANTH 345 Sociocultural Theory in Anthropology
ANTH 346 Culture, Globalization, and the Environment
ANTH 349 Anthropology of Development
ANTH 676 Anthropology of Nature