Andrea Marston
Assistant Professor
Rutgers University, Department of Geography
Biography
Andrea Marston is an Assistant Professor in the Geography Department at Rutgers University. Her research explores the politics and economics of natural resource governance in Latin America. Her past projects have focused on peri-urban water governance and rural small-scale mining in Bolivia, and her current study explores the emergence and deepening of mining frontiers across Latin America as an effect of the global transition to renewable energy technologies.
Rutgers Climate Bridge Panel 7: Vision for People
Abstract
Beyond the Technical Fix: A Global Approach to Resilience:
Drawing evidence from Latin America, this talk makes the case for pursuing climate resilience from a global perspective. I emphasize two major ways that we might “think globally” in the current era. First, I examine the global implications of new energy technologies (electric cars, smart grids, etc.) and suggest that any sort of local “technical fix” will have global repercussions along its constitutive commodity chains. Second, I discuss some Latin American experiments in rethinking environment-society relations and suggest that policymakers and planners in the Global North might learn from their Southern counterparts. I close by pointing to how these attempts have been limited by Latin America’s position in the global economy – a limitation that would best be addressed through transnational engagements.